Lost and Found
by Monny287
Summary: It's the gang's 10 year high school reunion, and they've found their futures aren't as bright as they'd hoped.
1. Author's Note

IMPORTANT NOTE

**IMPORTANT NOTE!**

While originally co-written by Jess and Alyssa (Monny287), Jess has found that she wishes to pursue her other fanfictions. Therefore, the remainder of Lost and Found shall be written solely under Alyssa. Hopefully all the fans of this story will continue to read it.


	2. Quinn's POV

Lost and Found

**Lost and Found**

**Ok, here's my new story, the one I promised you guys! Ok, I know, I'm working on Working Love and Fight For Her, don't worry. Working Love, however, I'm stuck on an idea, but I'm trying, and Fight For Her is almost done, but I have some things to change around a bit. But they will be up soon. **

**I will also be having some help on this. My co-writer will be announced next chapter, when this person writes their next chapter! Yay! Ok, so the chapters will most likely take place in people's POV's. So this first chapter will be in Quinn's. So, enjoy, and this is a kind of test to see if people love it. **

_**Quinn's POV**_

_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Del Figalo,_

_I am pleased to invite you to the Pacific Coast Academy 10 year reunion held on Saturday May 2nd, 2019. It will be held in the PCA gym. It will start at 6pm and go on until 12am. I really hope you can make it to this outstanding event._

_Sincerely,_

_Dean Christopher Rivers_

_Pacific Coast Academy_

A soft wind blew past my ear gently as I hurried up the front steps to my front door, exhausted. Today had been quite a rough day. Being a 10th grade Biology and Chemistry teacher was a tough job, especially since most of the 15 and 16 year olds were not as mature as most should be.

Lots had changed since high school; I have changed since high school. My values and dreams grew enormously, as did my relationship with one Mr. Logan Daniel Reese. Our relationship had remained hidden, and still is hidden, though we are not together anymore. Junior Prom was great. We kept our relationship secret, and still had a great time when we snuck away from Dustin and Stacy to be together. No, prom wasn't the problem that made us break up, senior year was.

At first, it started out great. Logan and I kept our relationship secret, it was all going great, and everything was perfect to me. Then that day came, October 24th, 2008. That was the day Mark came to me and told me he wanted me back. Part of me wanted to shout, "No, no way, I don't love you, I love Logan. I'm so over you!" But another part of me hesitated. I guess I realized that old feelings may have risen at the time, and that's why I hesitated in saying anything. Of course, I happened to mention this to Logan, and we soon got into a huge fight after telling him I may still love Mark, which cause us to break up. To heal my broken heart, I decided to give Mark a chance, so we dated again.

But soon, I realized that Mark and I have changed too much to be together. The topics we used to talk about didn't seem important, and Mark seemed so dull, especially his kisses. So when I went to go talk to Logan about this, I saw him back to his old ways, making out with Make out Mandy, the girl he planned to take to prom. I knew now that Logan and I could never be together, so I soon devoted all my time with school and Mark, forcing myself to fall back in love with him, as I fought with Logan more and more. The falling in love part worked for a little while, it worked all through senior year. Mark and I ended up at the same university. We kept dating all through college. I refused to keep in contact with Logan, or anyone for that matter. I didn't want to reflect on the past, especially if I had to remember the awful break up between Logan and I. So, I occasionally wrote to Lola and Zoey, but not often.

A few months before college ended, Mark proposed. It was the sweetest thing he's ever done, and I thought at the time that I loved him, so I accepted. I didn't invite anyone from PCA to the wedding. It was a month after college graduation, and it consisted of me, Mark and our families. It was relatively small. I guess the pain of senior year at PCA made me more distant toward my friends, so that's probably why I kept the wedding small.

But I soon realized, after a few weeks of being married to Mark, was no picnic. I wanted to achieve my dream of being a scientist, and was almost reaching my goal. I got a few offers from major research companies. I talked to Mark about it, being the loving wife I was, but soon my dreams crashed down, when Mark convinced me not to become a scientist. He told me it was too time consuming, and he wanted to spend every minute with me, and that there'd be no way that could happen if I was working as a scientist all the time. So I turned down the job, becoming a high school science teacher instead. Mark became an accountant, and was honestly pretty good with it.

Also, I soon found myself discovering, after a couple of months of being married to Mark, that I didn't love him anymore. The love was just gone, or maybe it was never there. When Mark kissed me, or if we talked, there was nothing there. At least during college, we attempted to have fun on our dates, and we enjoyed planning our wedding. But now that we were married, and we both had jobs, there was nothing there.

Mark also was always working at the office lately. He kept telling me that he had a lot of work to do, and I used to believe him, but lately, he's been working too much, and his secretary, Cynthia, and he seem too friendly when I go over to visit him when I have the chance. I do fear that he may be cheating on me, but I can't do anything. I don't want to divorce him.

I know, if you don't love your husband, you divorce him, right? Well, I won't, I can't. Firstly, because I don't believe in divorces. None of my family ever got a divorce. When my own parents went through a rough patch in their relationship, when they always fought and yelled, they considered divorce, because they didn't feel they loved each other anymore. But after going to several couple therapy sessions, and spending as much time with each other as possible, they realized the love was back, and they worked through it. I guess I believe that Mark and I can work through this. But deep down, I knew we wouldn't be able to.

Also, I guess I didn't want Logan to win this fight. During our fight in senior year, he said that me and Mark would never work out, that we'd never get married, and stay married. I guess I took that to heart and I wanted to prove him wrong.

But I was not happy with Mark. Nothing was the same anymore. He was barely at home, I had given up my dream for him, because he wanted to spend time with me, but really, he was never at home, so there was no time together.

I sigh as I shut the front door, grabbing the mail on the way in. I start shuffling through the mail. Bill, bill, bill, bill, letter for Mark, letter for me, letter for both of us, bill- wait, what? I grab the letter before the last bill and read it. Mr. and Mrs. Del Figalo, it read. It had the PCA stamp on the top right of the letter. I wonder what this could be about. Curious, I abandon all other mail and bring the letter to the living room, opening it eagerly. I open the folded letter and start reading it. I read it over and over till the words are blurred under my eyes.

A PCA ten year reunion? Oh my god, I think. I am so not ready for a reunion with my friends that I have no kept in touch with since high school ended. Granted, most of it was my fault, well, everything was my fault in barely keeping in contact, but it was for my own reasons. With Logan, and with Mark and everything, it was way too much to handle.

A reunion would be good, however. The prospect in seeing the gang again made my heart soar. I missed everyone dearly, and I would love to find out who's with who and everything. It would be good to see them again. But then everyone would see Mark and mine's loveless marriage, they'd know, then Logan would have the last laugh. Logan, thinking of him made my heart flutter. Yes, I did miss him dearly. Even though we broke up and I hated him, I still kind of missed him. Even though we broke up, and had some rough times, I couldn't help but also think of the good times with him. Logan and I were great together. We had more fun than Mark and I ever had. Logan was also quite sweet when he needed to be, he had changed because of me. Well, until he made out with that Mandy girl in senior year. That just made him back into a jerk, the person I hated so much.

I let go of the letter, watching it fall onto the ground before my feet. I thought for a minute. I didn't know if Mark wanted to go, very doubtful. I would have to talk to him later.

But right now, I needed a drink.

**Ok, so that's chapter one, kind of short, but very descriptive as what happened in senior year and stuff. Again, it's kind of AU with Quinn and Logan and everything. Next chapter's Zoey's POV, written by my lovely co-writer!! And you'll see who that is next chapter. So, review! Don't worry, my next chapter will be longer. **


	3. Zoey's POV

Zoey's POV

Zoey's POV

**Ok, Jess (charmed4eva112) here, to introduce my very lovely and fantastic co-writer, monny287! Monny wrote this whole chapter, the only parts I'm writing are the author's notes, so I hope you enjoy her chapter. BTW, thanks for all the reviews last chapter. They mean a lot.**

**Zoey's POV**

She groaned as she rolled over in bed. She ached all over. Looking at the clock, she saw that it was about two hours before she used to get up. Excellent. She groped over to her beside for the ibuprofen she kept in the small drawer, downing it with a bottle of Blix and grimacing as the uncoated tablets dissolved on the back of her tongue. Groaning again, and look with envy at her sleeping husband, she climbed out of bed and grabbed an outfit from her drawer. The weather report yesterday said it would be well over eighty today, but the safest choice seemed to be a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. Sighing, she hoped her office would be air-conditioned. On second thought, it probably wouldn't be.

She opened the door carefully, making sure not to make any noise. She crept down the hallways to the bathroom, breathing a sigh of relief that she hadn't woken James. A quick glance in the mirror made her suddenly feel very run down, and ages older than she was. Sighing, she twisted the shower handle with more force than necessary, hoping to take her frustration out on something...anything.

The warm water was welcome on her skin, but the hard pressure of the drops falling was not. The bars of purple on her arm from someone's hard grip protested to the pressure, bringing pain so quick and sharp it made her gasp. She turned the handle to a colder setting, hoping it would offset the pain, but all it did was make it sharper. She gently rubbed a washcloth over the area, trying not to make the pain worse. She gave up, hissing in pain as she washed quickly, and stepped out of the shower, covering herself from head to toe in an over-sized robe. She didn't want to be reminded of last night.

Making her way over the mirror to brush her teeth, she inspected the latest damage. A dark blue-ish bump was making itself known under her eye. At least it wasn't as swollen as the last had been. Thank God for make-up. Though at this rate, she'd run out before next week. She covered it as much as she could, though even with a layer of powder, it could still be seen as a purple ring. Oh, well. She could always blame it on sleeplessness. It wasn't exactly a lie. She hadn't slept in weeks. Nightmares plagued her sleeping hours. What used to be an escape had become almost as worse as reality. She would wake up more exhausted than when she went to bed. When she did sleep, it was restless, and she tossed and turned. What was the point?

When she was satisfied with her appearance, she made her way back to the room, where her husband still lay asleep, and would for another hour and a half. She contemplated curling up under the covers again, but feared what James might do lest she be asleep when he woke up. Sighing, she padded silently over to their closet, opening the door slowly; it had a loud, squeaky hinge, and she wanted James to stay asleep as long as possible. In all reality, she wanted him at least three hundred miles away from her for the rest of her life, but she took what she could get. She slipped into the small room, and rifled through piles to find a sweatshirt. The sweatshirt wasn't for warmth, but for protection. From prying eyes. From _him._ Padding was good, and she needed all the padding she could get.

Being in California, she found she didn't own any. The P.C.A sweatshirt she'd had didn't fit anymore, and she'd given it to Dustin long ago. She searched rapidly, cursing softly under her breath.

The back of the closet was a mess of papers, boxes and strewn clothes, and it was there she found her lifeline. Seeing something that resembled the garment she was looking for, she pulled it out, and was immediately encompassed by a musty, familiar scent of cologne. Looking down at the sweatshirt, she saw the Union Jack, and gave a small smile. Chase. She'd forgotten about this sweatshirt. She'd always meant to give it back to him, but never got around to it.

_"Can you believe this?" Zoey asked, walking out in mid-December and laughing in delight. "Snow! In California!"_

_"There is snow in California, Zo," Chase had chuckled, putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans and not participating in her mirth. _

_"Not this part of California," she said, holding out her arms as if she meant to catch all the flakes. They collected in her air and on her bare skin. The ground wasn't nearly cold enough to make them stick, and they melted on contact. But that wasn't the point. The temperature of the air, however, was freezing, but she barely felt it. She'd never really seen snow before, and it was exciting. She could see other students outside as well, some with mouths wide open to catch the fluff. _

_"Zo, you're gonna freeze," Chase said, going over and grabbing her hand. "We should probably go back inside."_

_"Oh, come on, I don't have class, and neither do you," she said. Chase smiled, before pulling his sweatshirt over his head. _

_"At least put this on so you don't die of hypothermia, okay?"_

_"Chase-"_

_"It's non-negotiable,"_

_"But then you'll freeze,"_

_"I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt, unlike the tank-top you're wearing," he said, managing to fling it over her head before she relented and tugged it on. _

_"Thanks," she said, after pulling the sleeves up. _

_"No problem," he smiled warmly at her. _

A smile touched Zoey's lips for the first time in what felt like ages, but the joy had soon been replaced by a large ache. An ache completely unrelated to the many black and blue spots that covered her body. An ache so strong it brought tears to her eyes as she pulled the over-sized garment over her thin frame. High school and Chase seemed so far away. Ages ago. In reality, it had only been ten years. Then again, she hadn't seen Chase during that time either. She heard he'd gotten married. Not that she cared. Or at least, that's what she told herself. She tried to convince herself she didn't care...that the wound was healed. She sighed again and went downstairs.

The kitchen was dark, and cold, and she was glad for the warmth the sweatshirt provided. The sky outside was only faintly pink, and offered little light. A flick of the light switch fixed that, and Zoey made her way over to the coffee pot, wincing as she saw the overturned laundry basket, the innocent casualty of yesterday's confrontation. Carefully, she righted it, threw the clothes into it, and placed it on the kitchen table. She'd fold them later. Clothes weren't high on her list of priorities right now.

A few minutes later, the coffee pot was humming blissfully, the only sound in the kitchen. The singing Zoey used to do while folding laundry to pass the time was gone, and she threw a pair of neatly folded socks angrily down into the basket. Where had things gone wrong? She felt old, much older than her twenty-eight years.

Footsteps could be heard on the stairs, the heavy lumbering of a still-sleepy James coming into the kitchen. He appeared in the doorway a few moments later, stretching and yawning as he did so.

"Morning," he yawned. "How's my girl?" So he was in a good mood. Excellent. Today would be a good day. She hoped.

"Morning," she repeated, a tight-lipped smile painted on her face. She handed him a mug from the dishwasher, into which he poured a cup of coffee.

"You're up early," he noted, taking a sip of the hot liquid. It didn't sound accusatory, and she was unsure of how to answer.

"Well, early bird catches the worm, you know," she said, the smile fading a bit. James smiled back, taking another drink, this one a deep swallow.

"That is true," he said. "And that is why I'm heading into the office early. I need to get a jumpstart on some new projects."

"Okay,"

"I'll be home around five, okay?" Translated: Have dinner ready when I get home.

"Okay,"

"Good girl," he leaned over the space between them to plant a kiss on her forehead. This gesture of tenderness did nothing to assuage her. It was like putting a band-aid on a mortal wound. She was afraid that wound was too big to heal. James pulled back suddenly, a quizzical look on his face.

"You smell like cologne," he said, and she heard the edginess in his voice that was a major red flag. She could see that the crooked half-smile she had once thought attractive was strained, trying to keep up the façade. She took a step back.

"It's an old sweatshirt from high school," she said, twiddling her fingers together.

"And you wore cologne in high school?" he asked, following her.

"N-no," Damn. She was in trouble now. Lying would only make it worse. "It was Chase's."

"Chase?" something flashed in his eyes, and the peaceful ocean blue of his eyes turned suddenly into a tumultuous storm of gray. James had always been jealous of Chase. Of the closeness they once had. She bit her lip and nodded.

"From a long time ago,"

"You've had his sweatshirt for ten years? And you just happened to not give it back?" he grabbed her arm in a vice grip, overlapping with previous bruises. The dull ache spread through her arm, making her whimper in pain. When had she become weak?

"I probably just threw it in a box,"

"Did you really? Or was it something else?"

"What something else?"

"You tell me,"

"Oh, come on," her sarcastic tone was her undoing, and the moment the words left her mouth she wished she could call them back. The counter was unusually hard that morning, and her skull found out the hard way. She saw stars as the world righted itself, before being thrown backwards towards the sink. The dishes still unwashed from the previous night clattered noisily as she slunk to the floor. One more snatch of the shoulders, one more shake, one more thud into the cabinets...hard. The stars became splotches of dark against the fluorescent light of the kitchen.

"Like I said, I'll be home at five," James said, standing up and looking with a steely face at his watch. She saw him calmly put on his coat and walk out the door before the splotches overtook her vision, and the pain left.

**Ok, so I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The next chapter will be in Chase's POV, then Logan's POV. The next chapter, by me, Jess, will be up as soon as I can. But for now, review!**


	4. Chase's POV

Ok, so this is Jess (charmed4eva112) yet again, welcoming you to the next chapter

**Ok, so this is Jess (charmed4eva112) yet again, welcoming you to the next chapter. I deeply thank all of the reviewers. Your reviews are much appreciated. Now, this chapter is Chase's POV, but I think I may do it third person, because first person is a little difficult. So, enjoy!**

**Oh, I should tell you where Quinn and Zoey live right now, because me and Monny forgot last two chapters. Quinn and Mark live in Manhattan, New York, while Zoey and James live somewhere in California. **

**Also note, the Chinook Observer is an actual newspaper, in Long Beach, Washington. **

_**Chase's POV**_

The sound of the shower being run arose him from his deep sleep. Chase groaned as his eyes fluttered open to the cream ceiling above him. He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes as he took in his surroundings. The same old place appeared before him as he yawned. Stretching his arms, he glanced at the time. 7am, perfect. He was up half an hour earlier than usual. Chase stumbled out of bed and proceeded downstairs to get himself a cup of coffee.

Chase opened the kitchen light and was temporarily blinded by the bright light that flooded the room. Rubbing his eyes, he stumbled over to the coffee maker where he put in the coffee grinds and turned it on. He listened to the coffee maker hum. Satisfied, Chase left the coffee maker to go pour some cereal into a bowl. Grabbing the cereal of his choice, which was Lucky Charms, he grabbed the milk from the fridge, and put the milk and cereal on the kitchen counter as he grabbed a bowl. Pouring the cereal and milk into the bowl, he put them away and sat on the stool as he began eating.

Chase faintly heard the shower being shut off and he sighed. He put another spoonful of Lucky Charms into his mouth and let the sugary-ness dissolve in his mouth. He absorbed the taste as it ran down his throat. Chase heard the coffee maker stop. He got up, grabbing two mugs on the way. He took the coffee pot and poured the liquid substance into the two mugs. He placed the pot back in its original placement and grabbed both mugs just as footsteps sounded down the stairs. A few seconds later, a brunette emerged, rubbing her eyes. She was already dressed for her job, her hair in a messy ponytail.

"Good morning," Chase greeted his wife. She smiled as the two shared a short kiss. She smiled when she saw the mug perched in his hand. She took it, smiling.

"Thanks Chase," she said as she took a sip of it, grabbing a muffin. She sat on the stool, putting her mug on the table as she munched on the muffin. Chase sat beside her, putting his mug down as he resumed eating his cereal.

"Hey, don't you have that meeting with those other fashion designers?" Chase asked his wife. She nodded as she finished the muffin.

"Yeah, at 10 this morning. I have to get there early to plan and get everything for the meeting," she said as she drank her coffee. Chase smiled as he finished his cereal and drank his coffee. He watched as his wife carried her mug to the sink and put it in. Satisfied, she turned to smile at him.

"How about you? Does Mr. Moore need you to stay late again?" she asked with a bemused grin. Chase laughed as he finished his coffee and put his dishes in the sink, wrapping his arms around the woman.

"No, not that I know of. Last night was a one time deal. He needed my column, and I hadn't exactly finished it. But today, I'll be home by 5pm," Chase laughed. Yes, Chase was a journalist for the Chinook Observer.

"Ok, and with all luck, if the meeting goes well, I may be home by 5:30," she said, smiling as she grabbed her briefcase filled with designs, and papers. She slipped on her high heels and turned and kissed Chase passionately for a good long minute before pulling away.

"I'll see you later sweetie," the brunette said. Chase smiled as he watched his wife go to the door.

"Bye," Chase said as his wife left. After she left, he sighed deeply as he headed upstairs to get dressed. On the way, he passed a door that had not been open in months. A sudden urge to open it overcame him and he paused, retreated back to the door and reached for the handle. The door creaked open slowly, revealing a staircase. Chase started moving up the stair case slowly, hearing the door close behind him. He made it to the top of the stairs and flicked open the light. The brightness startled Chase for the second time that day and he squinted. His green eyes soon adjusted to the light and he looked around. Boxes and boxes flooded the room. Chase walked over to the boxes and started looking at them. One of the boxes caught his eye. It was hidden in a corner, not quite visible unless you looked hard enough. Chase reached over and yanked the box as hard as he could. The box, after a few tugs, finally popped out, making Chase stumbled back, then onto the floor in surprise. Dust flew out and Chase covered his mouth and nose, coughing. Once the dust cleared, Chase took a look at the box. It read, _Chase Matthews and Zoey Brooks. _

Satisfied, Chase opened the box. He saw memories and pictures galore. He let his hand roam into the box and he picked up something. It was a picture. Chase looked at it. It was of him and Zoey in Maui, before senior year. They had just become boyfriend and girlfriend, Chase's arms wrapped around Zoey, and Zoey's head leaning on Chase's chest, both smiling brightly. Chase smiled. He remembered Maui. It was the happiest summer of his life.

_It was the day before Chase was leaving to go back home to pack before senior year. The two were cuddled next to each other on the beach, Zoey laying beside Chase, their hands intertwined. Zoey looked up to Chase._

"_I can't believe by this time next week, we'll be at school, our senior year," Zoey sighed. Chase smiled as he squeezed Zoey's hand. _

"_I know. But this summer was fun," Chase said to his girlfriend, who giggled._

"_It was so much fun, swimming, tanning, and just being with you," Zoey said. Chase nodded as the two stayed in silence. Finally, Zoey spoke again._

"_Hey Chase?" Zoey asked. Chase looked down._

"_Yeah?" he asked. Zoey paused for a minute. _

"_Whatever happens senior year, and whatever happens after senior year, do you promise that we'll always remain good friends?" Zoey asked, her voice small and vulnerable. Chase sat up, Zoey following. Chase wrapped his arms tenderly around Zoey._

"_I promise, whatever happens to us in senior year and beyond, we'll be the best of friends. No matter what happens, if we break up, if we go to different colleges, if we start to drift apart, we will be the best of friends," Chase promised. Zoey smiled as she leaned into his chest. Chase kissed the top of her head as they looked out to the ocean._

Chase sighed as he looked at the picture before slipping it back into the box. Sadly, the promise had been broken. Senior year, they did break up on Valentine's Day, and after that it got awkward, so when they went to their separate colleges, Zoey to Rhode Island School of Design, or RISD, and Chase to University of Iowa, the two lost contact of each other.

Then, at Iowa, he met up with the one person he thought, and hoped, he'd never see: his ex girlfriend Rebecca. Yes, the same Rebecca that made him choose between her and Zoey in 10th grade. But this Rebecca had mellowed. She seemed like the old Rebecca, before PCA. Of course, she acted the way she did back at PCA because she was jealous of Zoey. But now that Zoey wasn't there anymore, she was back to the old sweet Rebecca, and Chase dared not mention Zoey's name again. Soon, Chase found himself falling for Rebecca all over again, just like he had back before 10th grade. So, after a couple of years dating her again, Chase proposed, and now, years later, he and Rebecca were still together and happy. Of course Chase missed Zoey. He couldn't deny that he didn't still love her, because he did, but he was realizing they weren't meant to be together, so Chase focused his relationship on him and Rebecca. But Chase always regretted not keeping in contact with Zoey. He missed her dearly.

Chase sighed as he finally closed the box, putting it back in the corner where Rebecca wouldn't find it. If she ever found out he still kept things of Zoey, who knew what she would do. Chase didn't know if the old Rebecca would pop back, or what. Chase stood up, wiping the dust from his hands. He turned and walked to the door, flipping off the light before shutting the door and getting ready for work.

**I know, it's kind of short, but then again, it's just starting everything out for Chase. Sorry to burst your bubble Shannon, but it is indeed Rebecca. Basically, James' and Rebecca's personalities switched. And the reason James was so OOC was because Monny wanted it that way. Then again, people DO change over time. James just changed for the worse. **

**So, review, and Logan's POV should be out soon, but I don't know when.**


	5. Logan's POV

"Cut

"Cut!" Logan yelled loudly across the set. The scene, which was now completely ruined due to the advent of a sprinkler malfunction, went on without thought. "Cut! I said 'cut', dammit!" If he'd known he'd had to work with the likes of _these_ people, he never would have gone into directing. It had been like this all day.

"What?!" the lead asked, crossing his arms over his half-bare chest, the fluffy shirt the script called for blowing in the breeze. He looked completely unhappy, and eyed Logan with malice. "This is the third time you've called 'cut' in twenty minutes, Reese!"

"Do you not _see_ those sprinklers over there?" Logan gestured to the offending appliances. The actors turned, though the connection wasn't made. "Hell, the movie is set in the _nineteenth_ century. I may not have done so well in high school, but even I know those aren't supposed to be there!"

"So? Get 'em turned off, and let's go,"

"What do you think I was _trying_ to do?!" Logan felt like ripping his hair out. A helpful attendant on the set shut off the sprinklers, and he took a deep breath. He walked back behind the camera, and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Alright, people, let's run it one more time!" A collective groan was heard.

"Oh, come on, Reese!" one of the actors protested. "We've been at this for nearly twelve hours. I'm dead on my feet. Can we please pick this up tomorrow?"

"You're not getting paid to make demands, Smith," Logan said. "You're getting paid to act, and that is exactly what you're going to do. And so help me, if I hear you complain about it one more time, you'll be off this project so fast it will make your head spin. And from what I've read in the papers recently, you need this paycheck. So we'll run the scene again. We're on a tight schedule and budget. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

"Yes, sir," Smith grumbled. He rolled up the sleeves of the ridiculous shirt he was wearing and picked up the sword that lay a few feet away where he'd dropped it.

"Good," Logan smiled, though there was no mirth in it. "Come on, people! Places! One more time!" The set was a flurry of commotion as Logan shouted, "Ready? Three, two, one…and _action!"_

"The lady is mine, you rat," Smith belted out in a perfect imitation of a British accent, brandishing his sword at his co-star. _Okay, who the hell wrote this script?_ Logan grimaced towards the actors. You rat? Yeah, great insult. He shook his head. Hey, it wasn't his job to criticize the writing. His job was just to direct. Something he'd been doing since the end of college, and had become quite noted for.

"And….cut!" Logan shouted at last. The sun was sinking low in the sky, and if they worked any longer, the daylight sword fight would soon turn into a nocturnal affair. Besides, they'd gotten it at least mostly right. It would do. "That's a wrap for today, guys! Pick it up tomorrow morning at nine!" A cheer went up among the crowd, and everyone scattered away to visit the local bar a few yards down the road. Yes, filming in the Bahamas had it's advantages.

Logan walked slowly back to his trailer, basking in the soft warmth of the dying sun, and the smell of the salt coming off the sea. If he closed his eyes it would be almost like he was back in Cali—no, no. That was in the past. And it wasn't like Logan to dwell on the past. At least, it wasn't _usually_ like Logan to dwell on the past. Lately, though, his mind had drifted to places past and thought long forgotten.

He climbed the rickety metal steps that groaned under his weight, and heaved the door open. The inside was even less homey looking than the outside, and looked like it would fall apart at any moment. It was likely older than he was. He made his way over to his bed and sank down onto it, holding his head in his hands and staring blankly at his feet and the worn, moth-eaten carpet beneath them.

"_I just want to know one thing, Quinn," Logan spat, crossing his arms over his chest. "Mark came back and says he loves you. Do you still love him?" There was a moment of hesitation, and Logan felt a knife of sorrow pierce his heart and twist painfully. _

"_Logan, I—" she looked at him through tear-filled eyes. _

"_It's fine," he said, though it was far from fine. "I'll make this easy for you. We're over. Now you can do whatever you want with Mr. No Emotion." He stormed past her and headed for the door, trying to retain what was left of his dignity, and trying harder to keep tears from falling down his cheeks. _

"_Logan!" she called after him in a watery voice. "Wait!"_

"_No," he said softly. "I can't take the pain." He turned around. "You were the first girl I ever really loved, Quinn. I can't stand here while Mark wins you back. I can't take that kind of pain. I'm out of here." He flung open the door and walked down the hall, blinking rapidly to stem the onslaught of tears. _

A week later, he'd transferred out of P.C.A. and to a private school in New York. His friends were confused, but he cited the need for more experience to become a model/movie director, and that he was sick of California. He shoved everything he owned into six boxes and a duffel bag, leaving un-needed things behind. He just had to get out. Away from the hurt. Away from the pain. Away from _her._

Now the recollection of the conversation made him sick. The words he used were said with so much venom. So much malice. And instead of chasing after her, he'd left, like a coward. He'd tried to pick up the phone in New York to call her. Every time, he hung up before the phone could ring twice. He tried sending e-mail, but couldn't find the right words. And amazingly, the Player of P.C.A was no more. He hadn't had a girlfriend since, and didn't want one. The girl he wanted was already married. The thought brought a bitter taste to his mouth. He'd nearly punched a hole through his computer when Michael sent him that e-mail.

"Knock, knock!" a cheery voice was muffled through the steel of the trailer. The door clicked open, and an attractive blond woman poked her head inside. "Hey, stranger! I thought I'd find you in here!"

"Go away, Candy," Logan said, not lifting his head from his hands. Candy was the female lead in the movie, and was convinced that Logan's rough attitude on set was all an act to hide his feelings for her. _Doesn't she ever leave me alone?_

"Come on, now, don't be like that," she chirped, making her way over to him and flopping down on the bed. "Would it kill you to smile at least once?"

"Yeah, and I'm too young to die,"

"Well, that's true," she kneeled behind him and began to massage his shoulders. He tried to move out of her grasp, but it was like trying to get out of an iron trap. Impossible, and quite painful, as she just kept kneading his skin and muscles harder. And she was no masseuse. "And you're much too handsome to rob the world of your beauty." Logan tried again to wriggle out of the way, but short of sawing off her wrists, there was no way he was getting out of it. Especially since she had his lower back in a vice grip between her knees.

"Candy, get off me," his voice had gone from patient to annoyed as Hell. Another minute, and he might just blow up. He tried to lift her hands off his shoulders, which only meant she gave herself in the invitation to lean in closer.

"Ooh, playing tough guy again, hmm?" Logan felt her breath on the back of his neck. "That's okay. I love the bad boys." She wrapped her arms around his chest and began to trail sloppy kisses down the back of his neck. _Okay, this needs to stop…NOW!_

"Candy, I said that's enough," Logan tried to keep and edge of patience in his voice. He didn't succeed. When she didn't, and instead tried to pull his t-shirt over his head, he jerked backwards suddenly. She let go, which was the desired effect, and quickly made his way to the other side of the small enclosure.

"Come on, baby," she crooned with a come-hither stare. "We both know you want this. You're so uptight. Let Candy loosen you up." She pulled herself into a sitting position and began to undo the buttons on her shirt.

"I don't need loosening up," Logan said, looking anywhere but at the half-naked actress in front of him. "And if I did, I wouldn't get it from _you."_

"Ooh, someone's in denial," she gave a laugh. "Logan, you've hired me for almost every one of your movies. And you're saying there's no attraction there?"

"Candy, the only reason I hire you is because the public loves your acting and your looks," Logan leveled with her. "But I'm sure as hell glad they don't know your personality. Don't you have a boyfriend to be getting back to?"

"Broke up with that jerk this morning," Candy got off the bed and made her way over to him. "I'm all yours."

"Yeah, well, I don't want you," Logan picked up her shirt from where she threw it on the floor and handed it to her. "I think it's past the time you should have left." Candy look like she'd been slapped. Logan guessed she wasn't used to being rejected. Well, there was a first for everything.

"Fine," Candy said briskly, throwing the garment back over her shoulders and quickly buttoning it back up. "But someday, you _will_ want me. And don't expect me to be around."

"No worries about that," Logan said, a grim expression on his face. He took her by the shoulder and led her to the door. "Goodbye, Candy."

"Go to Hell," was the only thing he heard.

Logan closed the door and slid down it to a sitting position. _God, what have I done with my life?_ He wrapped his arms around his knees, and laid his head on the makeshift pillow and let out a half-choked sob. For the first time in ten years, Logan cried. Alone in the Bahamas, in a rickety trailer, at nine-thirty at night, Logan bawled like a baby. And the only person who could comfort him was in Manhattan, and she had long forgotten about him. A sorrow like he'd felt only once before settled over him like a stone as he soaked the knees of his jeans with long-needed tears.

**Ok, so that was Monny's wonderful chapter. So, what did you think? Hopefully, my (Jess's) next part for Quinn will be out soon. So wait around for that. So, review! And I'll try to update my other stories as soon as possible. **

Top of Form

Bottom of Form


	6. Michael's POV

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: Since there was clamoring for a Michael chapter, I thought I'd oblige. It wasn't in the original plans, but hey, what's life without a little spontaneity? **

_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Barret,_

_I am pleased to invite you to the Pacific Coast Academy 10 year reunion held on Saturday May 2nd, 2019. It will be held in the PCA gym. It will start at 6pm and go on until 12am. I really hope you can make it to this outstanding event._

_Sincerely,_

_Dean Christopher Rivers_

_Pacific Coast Academy_

"Jake…no! Jake…get back here!" a giggle reverberated through the upstairs of the Barrett household, a high pitch squeal that made Lisa giggle herself as she sat down on the couch in the living room, flipping through the mail left earlier on the coffee table. She looked up from the letter she'd just opened to listen."We've got to rinse the soap out of your hair!"

"You doing okay up there, Michael?" Lisa asked, suppressing a chuckle as she did so. Michael had somehow convinced her he was man enough to take on both their six-month-old and two-year-old boys for bath time and bed time.

"Just fine, dear!"

"Are you sure? I could come up and—"

"No! Don't come up! I'll be down in a little bit,"

"Alright,"

"Jake!" the name was a plea from upstairs, as the offending toddler made his way down the stairs without a stitch of clothing on him, covered with soaps suds on most of his body.

"Shhh!" he lisped, putting his hand over his mouth and dashing behind the couch. A smile tugged at his mother's lips as she nodded her head in his direction. Michael came puffing down the stairs a moment later, looking a little frantic and frazzled. He was soaked from head to toe in water, most likely from a few well placed toddler and baby splashes.

"Jake?" he looked around the living room. He caught his wife's eye and raised an eyebrow, for the amused expression on her face was giving something away. She pointed discreetly behind the couch, making sure her son didn't' see her do it. Michael smiled in appreciation, before swooping behind the offending piece of furniture and pulling his son out by the ankle, flipping him upside down in the air.

"Daddy!" Jake said, laughing hysterically. A hiccup cut through his laughter, only making him laugh harder. "Down!"

"Oh, no, mister Jake," Michael said. "We're going to get you cleaned up, and then it's off the bed. Why can't you be more like your brother?" He flung the toddler over his shoulder and carted him away upstairs.

"Mommy! Help!" Jake reached out pudgy hands towards his mother. Lisa smiled, but only told him to be good, and bid him goodnight.

Two hours, three stories, and four trips downstairs for water later, Michael collapsed onto the bed beside his wife.

"Tired?" she asked him, obviously amused.

"How in the world do you do that _every single night?"_

"Carefully. Not to mention I'm Mommy,"

"So?"

"So, I'm the one who usually does the domestic stuff, rather than the fun stuff, like chasing them around the backyard."

"Ugh."

"Oh, it wasn't that bad, was it?"

"I almost had to tie him to the bed to make him stay there!"

"I've contemplated that."

"Argh!" Michael buried his face in his pillow and groaned again.

"I guess that'll make you think twice before you tell me parenting is easy, hmm?"

"No more….no more kids…ever."

"Hey, I wanted to stop at Jake," she rubbed the back of his head. "But _someone_ kept saying 'just one more, just one more'."

"Whatever you fed that child to let him have so much energy—I want some."

"Ah, yes, my secret weapons: peanut butter and fruit gummies."

"You're an evil woman."

"But you love me anyway."

"That I do," Michael propped himself up and gave her a kiss. "So, how was your day?"

"Amusing, watching you," she smiled. "Though I managed to get an entire load of laundry done without Jake wanting to dive into the warm towels out of the dryer."

"Refreshing."

"Very much so. Oh! And did I mention we got an invitation for a P.C.A. reunion?"

"Has it been ten years already?"

"Yep. We're turning into old farts."

"When is it?"

"The second of May."

"Alright then. I'll arrange for a babysitter."

"You want to go?"

"Of course. I haven't seen any of the gang besides Lola in ten years. It'll be great!" he rolled over, and in another minute, was fast asleep. Lisa rolled her eyes and turned off her bedside light. Michael was a wonderful husband and father, but when it came to parental stamina, he was such a lightweight.


	7. Quinn's POV 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: Okay, so it may be a bit of a shock to see this story under a different pen name. For those of you who don't remember, I am Jess's co-writer for this story, and couldn't bear to see it thrown away. So, she gleefully signed over the idea to me. Hopefully I can do her parts justice. **

"And _that _is what can happen when you mix the wrong chemicals for the lab, class," I barely stifled a laugh, as tired at I was. The lab table was covered in liquid, and a bit scorched from the addition of something explosive. A dying remnant of the lab worksheet fluttered down onto the table, smoldering at the edges. It had been a long day, the kind where you wake up tired, only to greet a dark gray day. Rain had been drizzling outside the windows since early this morning, making me lazy and tired. This accident was the best part of my entire day, and I had to cover my mouth with one hand to keep from bursting into hysterics. The two teenagers responsible looked at me, helpless, giving shy smiles to me and their classmates. "Remember, it was two drops of the hydrochloric acid mixed with the sodium chloride for the base of the lab. Not potassium."

How they mixed up salt and potassium I had no idea. The salt was clearly labeled, and finely ground, while the potassium crystals were a far cry larger, and way off to the left of the lab materials. It has the unfortunate habit of exploding into a large burst of flame when exposed to liquid. They were leftovers from my substituting an eleventh grade chemistry class, giving that same demonstration. Obviously, my present class had jumped ahead and learned it themselves. But, that's what I got for pairing a boyfriend and girlfriend together.

"Take a paper towel from over there," I gestured to the sink in the corner, "Wet it, and clean up the lab table. You can re-do the lab next class." I went to turn away before adding "Separately." I heard the two groan behind me, and I shook my head. Maybe they'd actually get some work done this year if they worked by themselves. High school. Gotta love it.

The bell rang abruptly, to the sound of a collective relieved sigh of the class. It was the last of the day, and a Friday at that. Everyone was ready for a break, even myself.

"Alright, guys," I said, before everyone could make a mad dash for the door. "Go and read chapter twenty-six for next class. There may be a quiz on it. Have a good weekend." And with that, they filed out. As soon as they were out, my after-school remedial studies class filed in. I sighed. Still a few more hours to go.

While expecting a warm husband and cat to return home to, I only found one. Albert, the gray and black striped tabby cat that had washed up on our porch the year before as a kitten, was mewing loudly as I put the key in the lock and turned it. The house was dark, and cold, which was unusual, considering Mark should have been home hours ago. I checked my watch. Nope, the time was right. Seven-thirty. I stayed for a bit after the remedial students left to grade papers, not to mention there was a baby shower planned for the senior class math teacher at five o'clock. For teacher's salaries, we all sure managed to get some pretty awesome gifts. That is one lucky baby.

"Alright, alright," I muttered, as Albert wound his way around my ankles, meowing loudly, his way of telling me it was dinner time. I nearly tripped over him as I made my way over to his food bowl, taking a can of cat food from the counter above it and depositing it's contents into the bowl. Albert purred in gratitude before going at the food with more gusto than I've seen football players go for a touchdown. _Football._ _That reminds me…_I shook my head. No. No way. I couldn't go back there. That was a different time, a different place, a different me. After all, _he_ was the one who ended it. Why should I feel guilty? _Because you didn't hold onto him when you had the chance…_my inner voice chided me, in an annoying sing-song voice. I scratched Albert behind the ears before turning on a nearby radio to rid myself of the silence. I moved the dial around until a high, lilting voice replaced the fuzz.

"You spend all your time waiting….for that second chance," Sarah McLaughlin crooned to me through the speakers. "For a break that will make it okay…there's always some reason to feel not good enough, and it's hard at the end of the day…" Okay, that wasn't happening. I flicked the dial again, searching for something else.

"Let me let go…baby," Faith Hill replaced it, on a local country station. "Let me let go. If this is for the best, why are you still in my heart….why are you still in my soul?" God, what was _with_ the radio tonight?! I tried again, fiddling with the dial until the distinctive, velvety sound of old soft rock reached my ears.

"I ain't missing you at all…know matter what my friends say…" Stupid radio stations. I felt like bursting into tears. Everything was against me. I angrily pushed the _off_ button, the buzzing inside my ears a welcome trade to the sappy break up songs.

"It wasn't my fault!" I shouted to no one in particular, though Albert lifted his head and meowed in sympathy. I collapsed onto a chair in the living room, putting my head in my hands. "He was the one who ended it, not me!" _But you didn't protest, did you? You didn't try to get him back._ _You let him leave. _That was true. I did. I let him walk out that door. And then let him fly to New York. Without a single word to say to the contrary. And unlike Chase and Zoey, I didn't go after him. Then again, look how well that had turned out for them. A year. That's how long the relationship had lasted. Not even. And now, she was married to James, and Chase was off with Rebecca. At least, that was what the arrangement was since last I heard.

A rustle of a key in the lock jerked me out of my reverie as Mark came stumbling through the door, looking exhausted. His eyes were bright and alive, however, and that sinking feeling I'd had for awhile now crept up again. The working late, the sudden happiness of my husband whenever he came home, the distance he'd placed between us, it was all falling into place.

"Rough day, honey?" I managed to choke out, tapping my fingers on my knee to keep from biting my nails—a nervous habit I picked up in college and had never quite quit. "You look a little—rumpled."

"Hmm?" he seemed distracted as he hung up his coat. He gently kicked the cat away, who was winding himself around Mark's ankles, looking for affection. Albert hissed in indignation and padded over to sit in my lap. I stroked his back as I regarded Mark. He turned to look at me. "Oh, yeah. Lots of accounts. Stupid people who don't know how to do elementary school math…same old."

"You hungry?"

"No, I grabbed something on the way home,"

"Oh," I smiled at him, trying to hide my hurt. It didn't matter if I wasn't in love with him anymore. Being cheated on still stung to the quick. It was like pouring salt onto a paper cut. "Alright then."

"I'm bushed," he yawned for emphasis. "I think I'm just going to head up to bed."

"Okay," I replied lamely. Though, in reality, what was I supposed to say? He came up and kissed me on the cheek. On the breeze wafting through the window, I could smell the sweet scent of apple blossom, quite different from anything I'd ever used. An ache settled into my chest, and I blinked back tears as he stripped off his dress shirt and tossed it in the direction of the downstairs hamper. I gave a shaky sigh as he disappeared up the stairs.

"Do I really want to confirm what I already know?" I asked myself, going over to the hamper. Albert, who had been unceremoniously dumped off my lap, hopped onto the washing machine and peered over my shoulder. I picked up the shirt. Not only did it smell of the different perfume, but the tell-tale sign of lipstick on the collar made it all so real.

"God, what am I, stuck in some cheesy romance movie?!" I muttered loudly to myself. I angrily threw the shirt down into the hamper. While I didn't believe in divorce, the option was sure looking good right now. Instead, I gathered up my best acting powers, and headed upstairs.

Mark was nearly asleep by the time I got upstairs. I sighed, slipping on my pajamas and sliding into bed next to him. I turned to face him.

"Mark?"

"Mmm?"

"There's a P.C.A. reunion coming up. I got a letter about it in the mail today,"

"Mmm…"

"Should we go?"

"Mmmm? Sure…" he tossed over to his other side, and I knew he wasn't listening to me anymore. And no matter how tired I had been during the day, I got very little sleep that night. My mind was whirling with memories of high school, thoughts of a certain ex-boyfriend, and the news that my husband was cheating on me. It was like having a paint-mixer set on _high_ in my mind, and by the time dawn crept over the edge of the windowsill, I was nauseous and had a massive migraine. And I wasn't any closer to making myself happier. But what else is new?


	8. Zoey's POV 2

Some time later, she opened her eyes, finding that it was difficult

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, not even some of the plot! Well, this part I do…but refer to Jess for things concerning Chase or Quinn.**

**A/N: In reading the reviews for Zoey's last POV, I saw there was some animosity for me making James the abuser. Why did I do that? It's not that I hate James. I think he's okay. But I needed someone that Zoey already had had romantic feelings for, and someone who seemed to care for her very much. And, I think he's portrayed as being too perfect in the series and in fanfiction. Everyone has a dark side. James' dark side is this. **

Some time later, she opened her eyes, finding that it was difficult. Great, another black eye. At this rate, she'd have to replace her make-up once a day, rather than once a week. She was keeping those companies in business, thanks to James. She groaned and sat up, leaning her head against the cabinets. There was a pounding in her head, as though a sledgehammer was going to work against her temples. She rubbed her fingers against the pain, but to no avail. It just got worse.

She struggled to her feet, planting both arms on the granite counter and hoisting herself up. Glancing at the clock on the wall told her it was well past ten o'clock. In a past life, she would be at work by now. In her current life, James had made her quit her job, claiming that he wanted to take care of her. Though how much taking care of her he was doing at the moment remained to be seen.

She shakily grabbed a chair from the kitchen table and sank into it. Licking her dry lips, she tasted iron. Putting a finger to it, she drew back and saw that it was covered in warm, sticky liquid. Great, she was bleeding. She'd deal with it in a minute. Right now, the pounding in her head and the sharp pain in her abdomen was preoccupying her thoughts. Quickly, she grabbed a package of frozen carrots from the freezer in lieu of an ice pack and pressed it to her stomach. She reached in again and pulled out a half-full bag of peas, and leaned her head gingerly against it. She sighed as the cold rapidly seeped through her skin and numbed the throbbing.

She didn't know how much longer she could take this. In a past life, when she was Zoey Brookes, Reliable One, she'd have walked away. _Will you fix it?_ Someone had asked once. _Of course, I'm Zoey, are you new here?_ She'd replied instantaneously. Where was that Zoey? The one who humiliated and stood up to guys who tried to push her around? And now, when it really counted, she couldn't move an inch. What a cruel irony.

She picked up the phone sitting on the counter, tempted to call someone. But who? She'd stopped talking to her friends ages ago, after college had ended, and she and James had gotten married. James was never that fond of her friends, and had confided to her that he felt more like an outsider than anything else. She doubted she even knew their phone numbers now. She didn't even know her mother's phone number now. She and her father had moved from England back to the US a few years ago, and since then, Zoey had talked to her parents twice, with James on edge in the other room both times. And the person she wanted to talk to most, needed the most right now, was a million miles away in Washington, happily married to his high school girlfriend. She let out a strangled sob and dropped her head into her enfolded arms, letting the phone slip out of her hand and skitter across the countertop.

_Pull yourself together,_ she told herself sharply. The voice sounded vaguely like the voice she used to use on Dustin years ago. God, where _was_ Dustin? Hell if she knew. _Come on, let's get up and get the mail. The walk will make you feel better. Just remember to re-apply your make-up first. The neighbors don't need to see that ugly bruise._ Zoey winced as her own voice transformed into her husband's domineering one for the last two statements. In any case, she did as she told herself, and walked out the door ten minutes later.

There was nothing in the mail of interest, as usual, as she flipped through each envelope. A few were coupons to the nearest pizzeria, proclaiming two large pizzas for under ten dollars. One was the electric bill, with a red stamp denoting _final notice_ printed on the outside. One envelope, however, caught her eye. On the front was the very familiar stingray, with the PCA seal in the upper left-hand corner. _Zoey Brookes_. There was another addressed to James.

Walking inside, she threw the rest down on the table and ripped open the one from her alma mater. Inside was a short letter, reading:

_Dear Alumni!_

_ Ten years have passed since you've graduated P.C.A. Hard to believe, we're sure. This is just a note to inform you that P.C.A is holding a reunion for your graduating class! Come and join your old friends and classmates to reminisce and catch up on what you've been doing since graduation! Time and date are listed below. Please RSVP by the end of next week. Hope to see you there! Go Stingrays!_

_ Dean of Students_

A reunion? Had it really been ten years since P.C.A.? Only ten years? It seemed a lifetime ago, and Zoey felt decades older than her twenty-eight years. She slumped her shoulders. She would love to go. James, on the other hand, probably wouldn't.

James didn't come home at five. He didn't come home at six. In fact, it was only after Zoey was tucked into bed and half-way asleep that he came into their bedroom. He flung off his tie and dress shirt, tossing them into a corner of the bedroom, nowhere near the hamper. Zoey, pretending to be asleep, felt the urge to say something, but the throb in her stomach was cold reminder of what would happen if she did. His dress pants landed somewhere far away from the rest of his clothes, and he slid under the covers.

"Hey, Zo, you awake?" he asked. He didn't sound drunk, but there was the pervading smell of whiskey on his breath. She hated it when he called her that. There were few people who could use it, and he was not on that short list. She continued her fake sleeping pattern, trying hard to keep her breathing deep and easy while her pulse fluttered wildly. God, she hoped he wasn't thinking of doing what she thought he was. Theirs had never been an intimate marriage, and so sometimes James took what he wanted, rather than asking. It was the most dehumanizing thing she had ever endured.

As her husband wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to him, Zoey's heart race increased thrice-fold. Damn. It was going to be one of _those_ nights again. She kept up her asleep act while he took what he wanted, and used her. As he left their bed and made his way to the bathroom, Zoey rolled over and cried into her pillow, her sob hopefully muffled by the cotton fabric and the sound of rushing water from the shower. _God, how did I end up here?_ Her life was a far cry from what it used to be, and looking back, she wasn't quite sure how she got there.


	9. Logan's POV 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even the original idea for the plot.**

A dull pounding was making Logan's spine recoil in horror. He peeled his eyes open to find that he'd fallen asleep in the sitting position against his door the previous night. _That's going to do wonders for my back,_ he thought, annoyed. He had a pounding headache that usually accompanied a good cry, and his mouth felt like it was filled with cotton. At least the pounding in his back had gone away.

Wait, there it was again. A sharp rapping. It took him about five seconds of contemplation to realize that the pounding was on the door he was sitting on, and inadvertently on his spine.

"Reese! Come on, you're late!" one of the crew tried to work the latch on the door, but found it locked. Logan heard a _tsk_ sound come from the crewman. "Don't make me grab a crowbar. The cast is about to riot."

"Alright!" Logan ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. He smiled in rememberence of how vain he used to be in high school. Somehow, after he'd moved to New York, that had disappeared, and been replaced by a quiet, brooding attitude. He hadn't many friends at his second high school, and that suited him just fine. Just like now. He didn't have many friends, and it suited him. Most times. "I'm coming!"

Logan tore off the shirt he'd been wearing since yesterday and threw it haphazardly on the floor of the trailer. Grabbing another one from the back of a chair that looked relatively clean, he tugged it over his head. He pulled on some shoes and took a deep breath before opening to door.

"Well, good morning Sleeping Beauty!" the crewman, one who had been with Logan since the beginning of his career, crossed his arms over his chest and looked at his boss with a rather amused look. "Candy must have really tired you out for you to sleep _this_ long. And by the way, it's about time you got laid."

"What?" Logan's mind was still fuzzy with sleep, and he could physically feel the gap between synapses in his mind. He scrubbed his face with both palms.

"I saw the girl go into your trailer last night," he smiled devilishly. "And she's been all over the set this morning talking about what a 'bodacious lover' you were."

"_What?"_ that sure got his attention. All thoughts of sleep were gone, as well as the fuzziness. He whipped a daggered look at the man. "She said that?"

"Oh, yeah. Been bragging about how she finally hooked you, after six movies."

"_Dammit!_ God, Ernie, I really don't need this crap this morning."

"What crap? Most men would enjoy being seduced by American's Hottest Female Actress, according to _Sensation Magazine."_

"Seduced? That woman couldn't properly seduce an orange."

"Okay, I'm confused."

"Candy's been running her mouth again," Logan sighed and headed in the direction of the set. "If she wasn't responsible for the biggest paycheck I'm going to receive this year, I'd fire her."

"You didn't sleep with her?"

"God, no," Logan kicked a small pebble with the toe of his sandal, watching it skitter on the dirt pathway in front of him. "I'd rather like to live out the remainder of my days as a director without an STD."

"Ouch."

"Truth. She's had sex with more people than the population of California."

"You'd better not let Candy hear you say that."

"I know. She'd go into one of her snits again and stomp off set."

"Oh, speaking of the set, I'd be careful out there today."

"Hmmm?"

"Candy's liable to attach herself to you like glue. I know how much you like Candy necklaces…"

"Didn't we have this talk about bad word puns?"

"Sorry, couldn't resist."

"I'm limiting you to one a day."

"Aye, aye, sir!" Ernie pulled out a rumpled envelope from an inside pocket of his overly large coat. "By the way, this came for you this morning."

"Really?" Logan took it and looked it over. "What is it?"

"I believe it's known as 'mail'."

"Oh, real funny."

"Hey, if this doesn't work out, I can always be a stand-up comedian."

"In your dreams."

"Actually, most of my dreams involve a very attractive woman, some whipped cream and—"

"Okay, stop right there. I really don't want to know any more."

"If you say so. But it only gets more interesting from there."

"I'm sure it does. Now go and do your job before I fire you."

"You'd never fire me! You love me too much!"

"That's what you think."

"Oh," Ernie covered his heart with one hand and pretended to look injured. "That hurts, boss. That really hurts."

"Just go," Logan smiled in spite of himself and shook his head. Ernie tipped his baseball cap and scurried off to do whatever it is he did. Logan wasn't quite sure. He flipped the envelope over and looked to the return address. _Pacific Coast Academy._ Woah, high school? He ripped it open and took out the carefully folded piece of paper.

_Dear Mr. Reese,_

_I am pleased to invite you to the Pacific Coast Academy 10 year reunion held on Saturday May 2nd, 2019. It will be held in the PCA gym. It will start at 6pm and go on until 12am. I really hope you can make it to this outstanding event._

_Sincerely,_

_Dean Christopher Rivers_

_Pacific Coast Academy_

A reunion? It couldn't have been ten years already…could it? Where the hell had the time gone? Answer: into his career. Movie direction had been his life for ten years; he'd never had a girlfriend in that time, nor gotten intimate with anyone. It wasn't for lack of trying: for five years, he'd gone on dates with girls, tried to be the boy he was in high school. But after Quinn…it all seemed so wrong. Everything he used to think "men" did suddenly just made him seem like a jerk. Every kiss with another girl twisted the knife she'd plunged into his heart a little more, until the sharp ache was too much. At the ripe old age of twenty-three, he'd sworn off women.

Would he go? That was the question bouncing around his brain at the moment. As he reached the set, he folded the paper back up and shoved it into his back pocket. It would have to wait until later. Later—when his mind wasn't so preoccupied by a certain person. Later—when he could actually think clearly. _Hell, think clearly?_ He hadn't been able to think clearly for the last six months. His mind was like a time machine set on a loop, perpetually in the past.

_"I'll make this easy for you…I'm outta here."_ The words he'd said still stung like barbs, and he had played the memory over in his mind so many times he could see in high definition the pain etched on her face. Pain mixed with betrayal. Pain and betrayal with a whole lot of hurt on top. Because of him.

_"I'll never hurt you,"_ He'd said those exact words to her, not long before they broke things off. Well, before he broke things off. _And you wouldn't even listen to her, _his mind taunted him. _You just stormed off. __**You**__ forced her into Mark's arms._ Logan tried to think of a good retort, but found there was none. His mind, however annoying, was right. It was his fault Quinn was married to Mark, instead of him. He was the one who drove her away.

"Hey, Reese, are you gonna stand there, or can we get started?" a voice jarred him rather rudely out of his reverie, and he was suddenly pulled back away from his high school days and back to the Bahamas. He had a movie to direct. All that other stuff could wait until later.

But his mind kept wandering back to that letter. It was burning it's way through his back pocket, searing both his skin and his mind. _Are you gonna go? Huh, are you?_ The two phrases became a mantra, and finally during a break in filming, he finally answered his mind. _Yes, I'm going, now will you shut up and leave me alone?!_


	10. Chase's POV 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: These are no longer going in any particular order other than what I feel they should. And I got my computer back, good as new, so here is the new chapter! The reunion is coming up in the next couple of chapters, so stay tuned. **

The dust was choking, making his throat scratchy and tight. His eyes were watering badly from the stuffy air, and his sleeves were damp from wiping it away. Though at this point, he wasn't sure whether what he was wiping away was a reaction to the air, or a reaction to the box of P.C.A. memories he had in front of him.

He'd tucked the box away earlier, but the nagging feeling to explore it further persisted as he sat typing at his computer. The words had swum in front of his vision, and his mind was so distracted that he nearly spilled a mug of scalding hot coffee onto his keyboard—twice. After two hours of pretending to work, he's frustratingly pushed the chair away from the desk and stomped back up to the attic. He'd found the box, settled down into an ancient, moth-eaten recliner, and opened it.

The overhead light bulb had burned out hours ago, and rather than replacing it, Chase instead had dug out an old hurricane lamp from a box of his grandparent's things he had somehow acquired and lit the wick inside. After turning the flame up as high as it would go without setting fire to the cobwebs laced across the slanted ceiling, he'd settled back, and continued.

He placed everything he'd taken out of the box around him, until he was lost adrift in a sea of high school memories, with nothing but his momentarily unstable mind to use as a buoy. And at the moment, he was sinking. He'd slid out of the recliner awhile ago, and was now cross legged on the floor. The old giraffe Zoey had given him sat idly in his lap, the uneven seaming he'd done when attempting to reattach its head making it look rather gruesome in appearance. With his left hand, he played subconsciously with the fringe on it's neck, twirling it about his fingers as he searched, found, placed. He had no idea what time it was…he felt as though he'd been up here for days. His back ached from sitting in one position for so long, and he found his heart ached for the same reason.

The box was deeper than he remembered, and at the bottom of it, he found a photo album, ratty and old. With a smile tugging at his lips, he propped the book onto his lap in front of the giraffe and opened to the first page. Lola's loopy script caught his attention, and he read the inscription at the top of the first page. _Chase and Zoey, here's your journey over the last few years. May it be many happy years to come, you two deserve it. We love you guys! Lola, Quinn, Logan, and Michael. _It had taken Lola six months to get all the photos for the album, he remembered her telling him. It had been a Christmas present, right before he and Zoey broke up. Ironic, wasn't it? He flipped the page, revealing photos from Zoey's first year at P.C.A. Memories swamped him as he looked at them.

_"You're lame at throwing rocks," she looked at him with a pitying look. _

_"What?" he smiled at her. _

And to think his biggest concern was trying to tell Zoey he loved her. Just a few short months later, that would change to "make sure she _doesn't_ find out I'm in love with her." He flipped to the middle of the album, this time the middle of high school. His eyes found a picture of him and Zoey sitting at a table near the fountain. His exaggerated hand gestures suggested he was in the throes of trying to tell a joke, and a look of pure amusement was painted on her face as she laughed at him. A chair a little ways away from them was a footrest for Zoey, her ankle bound in tan ace bandage, crutches propped up against it.

_"Don't groan when you lift me!" she said incredulously, as he held her a little tighter and walked in the direction of P.C.A. _

_"I'm not used to carrying humans around in my arms for long distances," he said, by way of explanation. _

_"Well, maybe you should go to a gym," she said with a flirtatious smile. He rolled his eyes. _

_"Oh, the sass,"_

He remembered that night. He'd felt a little surge of pride that Zoey had called only for him, and not for any of their friends. And as tragic as hurting her ankle was, carrying her all the way back to P.C.A. had been a thrill. It made him feel protective, and manly. Not to mention gave him an excuse to hold Zoey really, really tightly as they ran from the green cloud that was chasing them. A good night, in his opinion. Never mind the fact that they could have been killed.

"Chase?" a female voice called up through the open ladder hatch. "You up there?"

"Rebecca?" Chase looked at his wristwatch. God, he'd been up here for four hours or more. Hearing footsteps on the ladder, he hastily shoved everything back into the box, trying to hide it all before his wife found him out.

"Hey, stranger," she greeted him warmly. "What're you doing up here?"

"Just, er…looking,"

"At the box of your and Zoey's stuff?" she came over and sat next to him on the floor, taking the giraffe he'd forgotten onto her lap. He stared blankly at her for a moment, before looking silently down into his lap. He'd never meant for her to find out. He prepared himself for a lecture, or at least a good ripping out.

"I know about the box, Chase," Rebecca laid a hand consolingly on his shoulder. He looked up at her. "I've always known. I'm the one who unpacked everything, remember? And judging from the fact that the box has considerably less dust on it than everything else up here," she gestured with her hand to the rest of the boxes, trunks and old furniture, "I'd say you've been up here a lot."

"I'm sorry," Chase said, drumming on his knee with his fingertips.

"I'm not mad about it," Rebecca said. "I know how much you loved her. I knew when we started dating I wasn't your first choice." Surprisingly, the words were said with no anger, no malice, and not a hint of sadness.

"Becca…" he began, not knowing quite what to say.

"Don't worry about it," she smiled warmly at him, and handed him the giraffe back. "Now, where do you want to go for dinner? I don't feel like cooking, and after you nearly burned the house down making macaroni and cheese last week, I'm not letting you anywhere near the kitchen."

"Er…" he was confused.

"I'll meet you downstairs in twenty minutes, and we'll head out, okay? Right now, I need to rinse the grime of the fashion world off of my body and mind."

"Okay," and with that, she left him alone in the attic once more, his mind a volatile mixture of guilt, shame, and longing that made his heart and stomach ache.

The rest of the night passed with no mention of the conversation in the attic. To Chase, it seemed like just another night. His wife was charming, as usual, talking animatedly about her day and the awful clients she'd had to deal with. He tried to be as attentive as possible, though his mind was elsewhere.

The next morning, however, proved that the conversation had held more meaning than he thought it had. He awoke at six to an empty spot beside him and a cloudy day outside. He didn't give it much thought, stumbling to the shower and languishing under the warm spray, trying to wake up. When he felt that he could stand up without falling over from sleepiness, he made his way downstairs. Rebecca sat at the kitchen table, clad in a gray work suit and cradling a mug of coffee in her hands.

"Good morning," he said, pouring his own mug of coffee and adding enough sugar to give any normal person a cavity. He took a deep swig, burning the inside of his mouth and the lining of his esophagus. He let out an oath under his breath and turned back around to face his wife. She looked rather placid, saying nothing as he sat down next to her. She took a sip of her coffee before sliding a folded packet across the table towards him.

"Open it," she instructed, tracing the edge of her coffee cup with a fingertip and looking a little nervous. He cocked an eyebrow in confusion and unfolded the packet. While he expected something along the lines of Rebecca needing to relocate for her job, what he found suddenly erased all thoughts of sleep from his mind.

"Divorce papers?" he looked at her in shock. "You're filing for divorce?"

"Filed," she corrected. "I've already worked everything out. As soon as you sign, we'll both be free agents."

"Wait…what?"

"Chase, let's face it," she said, looking him in the eye. "We've been living more as roommates than husband and wife for the past five years. You're not in love with me and—"

"Wait a minute—"

"Let me finish. You're not in love with me. Even the average person on the street can tell that. I've come to terms with that ages ago, and frankly, I'm not in love with you either. I'm in love with…someone else."

"Who?"

"Someone I met at work. Nothing's happened!" she said hastily, looking at Chase's face, which showed a mixture of hurt and disgust. "I don't believe in cheating in relationships. But…I would really like it to go somewhere. He's a nice guy, Chase. You'd like him."

"Uh-huh," Chase pushed the packet away from him and went to stand in front of the sink. He dumped the rest of his coffee down the drain, suddenly not needing the extra boost of caffeine. He leaned over it and stared out the window that looked out onto the backyard. He thought about what had just happened. She wasn't wrong. He wasn't in love with her. Had never been in love with her. She'd just been an easy replacement for Zoey. They lived like friends, like brother and sister. They hadn't been intimate in…well, Chase didn't like to think of how long it had been since then.

"Chase," the sound of her voice made him turn around. "Please do this. If not for yourself, then for me."

"Just…hold on a minute," Chase scrubbed his face with his hands. This had been one hell of a week, and if things kept going this way, he was due for a near-death experience the day after tomorrow. "Are you serious about this?"

"I wouldn't have given you the papers if I hadn't been."

"And this will take…how long?"

"As soon as I drop them off at my lawyer's office on my way to work, we are officially divorced."

"Then what happens?"

"Well," Rebecca broke the stare and looked down into her coffee. "Last week, with some of the money I'd saved, I bought a house on the east coast."

"The east coast?"

"I have to move there for work anyway, and I loved the house. Anyway, I can everything of mine packed up by the end of this week, and I'll be at the new house by the weekend."

"And the new guy will be there?"

"If everything goes as planned, then, yes, he'll be waiting for me there."

"No squabbling over shared appliances?"

"You are welcome to keep all the appliances, furniture, draperies, miscellaneous items," she cocked a half-smile at him.

"And the new guy will be there?"

"If everything goes as planned, then, yes, he will be waiting for me."

"Well," Chase picked up the packet lying on the table and stared at the blank signature line, spelled out for him with a green post-it arrow just where to sign. He looked back at her. "You really love this guy?"

"Yes, very much."

"And he loves you?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"I'll sign the papers."

"Really?" a smile spread over her features. "Thank you, Chase. So much."

"Just sign here?" he pointed to the line with a pen she'd handed him.

"Right there," she said, her smile growing wider as he touched the pen to the paper. With a flourish of bad handwriting, Chase scrawled his name. He handed the papers back to Rebecca. She stood, tucked them into her purse, which hung on the chair behind her, and kissed him on the cheek.

"You're a good guy, Chase," she said. "I hope you find happiness in your life." She turned and left, the closing of the front door echoing around the empty house.

And just like that, he was single again. In retrospect, he hadn't expected it to be that easy. She'd been completely placid about the entire thing, though he'd expected nothing less than fire and brimstone to come out of her eyes and mouth. _She_ was the one who filed for divorce, also something he didn't expect. And he'd even shocked himself. He'd always convinced himself that although Rebecca wasn't his first choice, he'd make it work. He'd be a good husband. He'd had that rote into his brain so much; his initial reaction to the proposal of divorce was to reject the idea. But looking at the papers, his mind had shifted, and suddenly, it seemed the only way their relationship could continue.

He wandered into the living room, picking up the stack of yesterday's mail as he went. Sitting down on the couch, he saw one with a familiar aqua and blue motif in the top left corner, and a friendly stingray smiling at him. Confused, he opened it.

_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Matthews,_

_I am pleased to invite you to the Pacific Coast Academy 10 year reunion held on Saturday May 2nd, 2019. It will be held in the PCA gym. It will start at 6pm and go on until 12am. I really hope you can make it to this outstanding event._

_Sincerely,_

_Dean Christopher Rivers_

_Pacific Coast Academy_

Yep, it was one of those weeks. _That near-death experience should be coming any moment now,_ he thought, laying the paper down on the table.


	11. Zoey's POV 3

Disclaimer: I own nothing

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: Well, I was a little disappointed to see only one review for the last chapter. I hope this one captures more people's attention.**

"Do you even remember how to get there?" Zoey asked her husband, as he took a rather sharp left turn down onto a side street. James tensed at the criticism, clenching and unclenching his hands around the steering wheel. A muscle in his jaw twitched as it always did when he was irritated.

"Of course I do," he spat. "I went to school there, didn't I?"

"I don't recognize anything," she said, looking out the window. "Maybe we should stop and ask for directions." As soon as the words left her mouth, she clamped her teeth down hard on her bottom lip. That had been the _wrong_ thing to say.

"I don't need to stop and ask for directions," James turned and looked at her with malice. The look in his eyes turned her blood to ice. "I know exactly where we're going."

"But—" Zoey ventured, even though she knew where this train of thought would take her.

"Do you _want_ me to pull over?" he asked, and she knew that if he did pull over, it wouldn't be to ask for directions. The look on his face asked her silently if she wanted a repeat of the previous night's fight. Her mind, as well as the fresh bruises covering her arms and torso, screamed at her to shut up. _Wasn't it bad enough?_ her mind asked her, pleadingly. _Do you really want to go through that again?!_ Last night had been the worst fight they'd had in a long time, and Zoey knew the bad temper had transferred over to this morning. She looked out the window again absently as she fingered the thick gauze bandage on her arm from last night's fight.

_"I thought I told you to get rid of that thing." James stood, menacingly in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest and his jaw tight. Zoey calmly continued to fold laundry, though she could see her hands shake visibly, and her breath quickened. She glanced to her right, at the object of James's fury. The sweatshirt. Chase's sweatshirt. Right. Of course. _

_"I just threw it in the wash. I didn't even think about it."_

_"That's your problem. You never think about anything."_

_"I thought about marrying you, didn't I?" she muttered, though louder than she intended it to be. James's eyebrows raised, and she knew she was in trouble. He took a few steps closer, annoyance changing into fury, and fury changing into rage. _

_"What was that?"_

_"Nothing. Anyway, it's just a sweatshirt." _

_"No, what did you say?"_

_"Nothing. It wasn't important."_

_"What did you say?" James put a hand on her arm and yanked her up from where she sitting on the couch. She bit her lip against the pain as he tightened his grip, putting excruciating pressure on old injuries. He shook her as if she weighed no more than a rag doll and addressed her again. "Say it. You know you want to."_

_"No." she cried, struggling to get away. All James did was grab her other arm with his free hand and bring her flush against him. Her feet barely touched the ground as he lifted her up so they were face-to-face. _

_"What's the matter? Am I not good enough for you?" his voice was eerily calm, and it sent shivers of cold fear through her. He shook her again, so hard this time, she swore she could feel her brainstem detach from the rest of her brain. Tears ran down her face as her heartbeat shot through the roof. His voice rose again. "Am I not a good husband?"_

_"No, it's not that, it's just—"_

_"It's just what?" James asked, setting her down none-too-gently down onto her feet and giving her a shove. Zoey stumbled back, trying not to fall over. She was able to regain her footing after a moment, and she moved a few feet away from him. "Just what?"_

_"Nothing!"_

_"'Nothing' she says," he said. "Nothing, hmm? Well, Zoey, there has to be something wrong, otherwise you wouldn't feel the need to keep another man's clothes in my house!" He picked up the sweatshirt and threw it at her. _

_"It's just a shirt!" she tried to be reasonable, though knew it was futile. Nothing would help at this point. James was too riled up to be cooled down by reason. "It's been in my closet since high school."_

_"Oh, yeah?" he gave her another shove, sending her crashing into the coffee table, and breaking one of the legs. A sharp pain in the ribs made Zoey wonder if one those weren't broken, too. "If it's 'just a shirt', why didn't you get rid of it when I asked you to?"_

_"I didn't think it was that big a deal," she stammered. _

_"Not that big a deal?!" at this point, James exploded. "You don't think it's that big a deal that you wear clothes from another man, especially one who is your ex-boyfriend?! What the hell makes you think I'd be okay with that?"_

_"I-I don't know."_

_"You don't know?" James dragged her up by the collar of her shirt and slammed her up against the wall. "Well, you better find an explanation real fast."_

_"It's just a shirt!" she said again, quickly covering her face with her hands as she saw James clench his free hand into a fist. However, hands make a poor shield for a fist, and all she succeeded in was making both her hands and her face hurt. She cried out in pain, which only seemed to aggravate her husband further._

_"Did that hurt?" he asked, in a mock-sincere tone. Zoey briefly wondered how much he'd been drinking tonight. She didn't smell the whiskey on his breath, but that didn't matter. "Well, that's too bad. You bring it on yourself." With a disgusted groan, he shoved away from her, instead pacing the room, muttering to himself. In this eye of the storm, Zoey made her way towards the door. She couldn't be here anymore. Tonight, at least. She moved slowly with her back to the wall, as not to attract his attention. When she reached the door, she groped for the doorknob, only to find the door locked from the deadbolt a few feet above it. James raised his head to look at her, and her eyes widened in a perfect impression of a deer caught in the headlights of a passing car. His face contorted into an ugly expression of anger. _

_"Going somewhere?" he asked, striding over to her quickly and pulling her away from the door. "Trying to run away?"_

_"James—"_

_"Do you really think I'd let you leave?" he asked, shoving her up against the wall once more and trapping her head between his arms. "Do you really think I'd just let you throw ten years down the drain? Just like that?" Cursing, he pushed away from her again, this time leaving the room completely to go into the kitchen. Too terrified to do anything, she waited, wondering what would happen next. She didn't dare try to leave again. James returned a few seconds later, a kitchen knife in his hand. He forced it into her hand and stood in front of her. _

_"Do it," he said, spreading his arms out as though he wanted to embrace her. She looked from the blade to him and back. "Stab me. Because killing me is the only way you're going to get out of here."_

_"No!" Zoey was horrified. She dropped the knife immediately, now shaking from head to toe. James retrieved it. He held it out to her, the blade pointing towards himself. _

_"Go ahead. You know you're dying to get rid of me."_

_"James, stop. This is crazy."_

_"You won't kill me? Fine. Would you prefer I kill you instead?" he swiftly turned the knife in his hand, the blade now pointing menacingly in his direction. "One of us has to die for you to get freedom."_

_"What?"_

_"Come on, Zo. Make your choice," he slashed the knife through the air. "Your life or mine." He swished the knife closer to her this time, nearly catching the front of her shirt as he went. _

_"Stop!" Zoey all but screamed. The blade came toward her once again, this time across her right forearm. She cried out as the pain radiated up her arm, and she pressed a hand to the wound to stem the flow of blood. The power behind the knife had been more than she thought, and she hoped he hadn't caught any major arteries. The blood seemed to bring James back into reality, as it bubbled up between her fingers and dripped onto the carpet. He dropped the knife immediately and ran out the door, slamming it behind him so forcefully the dishes in the kitchen cabinets rattled. Relieved, Zoey picked herself up and headed for the bathroom. After cleaning out the wound and seeing that it wasn't as deep as she thought it had been, she placed a thick gauze pad over it and tape it in place before going back to finish folding the laundry. The tears that she had been crying before refused to stop for another hour and a half, long after she had finished the laundry, and the pain in her cut had ebbed slightly. _

James had returned home later that night, smelling like the inside of a beer brewery. Luckily, he had dropped heavily onto the bed like a stone, falling asleep on contact with his pillow. He had woken up that morning with no traces of a hangover, and although he was in a bad temper, what had transpired the previous night wasn't mentioned.

James reached over and placed a hand on her knee, as he often did. When they were in public, he made sure to keep a hand on her at all times. Zoey thought of it as a reminder that he pretty much owned her, and that there was nothing she could do about it. The heavy weight and warmth of his hand on her knee was uncomfortable, but she didn't dare move. The last thing she needed was another fight.

"See? I told you I knew how to get here." James said, triumphantly, twenty minutes later. Though he had gotten lost three times over the past hour, Zoey thought it wise not to mention it. She just smiled weakly at him and stepped out.

It was as if she had stepped back in time. The campus hadn't changed a bit since the last time she'd been here. The students milling around could have been her classmates. The buildings were exactly the same; no dirt or moss had grown over them to show a passage of time. Nothing had been built, nothing torn down. Zoey felt eighteen again, and for a moment, she took a deep breath and smiled. A genuine smile. It felt odd on her face. She hadn't smiled genuinely at anything in at least five years.

"The gym, it said?" James asked, coming up next to her. Zoey pulled the invitation out from her purse and looked it over.

"Yes, the gym. And we're right on time," she patted his arm almost affectionately as he wrapped it around her waist to lead her by the small of her back. Zoey's mind sighed. It was Zoey's least favorite hold—the small of the back. It made her feel inferior, child-like, rather than an adult. But she didn't dare say anything about it. After last night, Zoey wasn't sure was James was capable of.

"Wow, things haven't changed a bit," he remarked, as they entered the gym, festooned with teal and purple balloons and streamers for the occasion. Zoey's eyes scanned the room, looking for familiar faces. James looked nowhere but straight ahead of him, and Zoey knew he wasn't enjoying himself. She also knew she would pay for it later. But right now, that wasn't a concern.

"Zoey Brookes?" a voice behind her asked in an astonished voice. Zoey looked in the direction of the voice, pulling James with her as she did. "Is that you?"

"Lisa?" Zoey asked, not quite recognizing her.

"Yes!" the bubbly girl—now woman "Oh, my gosh! It's so good to see you!"

"It's good to see you, too!" Zoey said, as she was enveloped in a hug by her old friend.

"So, I see you snagged yourself a handsome fellow," Lisa teased as she looked in James's direction. "Would this be the James Garrett that took P.C.A. by storm?"

"In the flesh," James flashed her a grin, a rarity for him. She laughed.

"I knew it. You haven't changed at all. Whew! Many a woman must have been disappointed when you two tied the knot."

"I'm sure," Zoey agreed, looking for something to change the subject with. "What about you? Are you married?"

"Six years and counting," she said, holding up her left hand for the wedding band to be seen.

"Really? To who?"

"Same guy I've been with for the last twelve years or so."

"Michael?"

"Yep!"

"Wow! Hey, where is he, anyway?"

"That is a good question," Lisa looked around her, only to find her husband no where to be seen. "I guess I'll have to catch up with you later. I'm going to go make sure he's not planning to prank his old teachers."

"See you later," Zoey waved in her direction as she left. She turned back to the rest of the crowd, which had grown in the last five minutes. She saw many more friends and acquaintances than she had, and though felt the urge to visit with them, didn't move.

Her eyes scanned over the tables of food and drink, watching the other alumni visit and chat with each other. And then, she froze and stiffened. There he was. _Chase,_ her mind said, desperate for her to reach out towards him. He was milling about near the back wall, his hands in his pockets, and looking a little lost. He could be a dead ringer for himself at eighteen, though his face had grown a little more angular and he wasn't quite as sinewy as his boyhood counterpart had been. She bit her tongue to keep from calling out to him. However, she found she didn't need to. As though realizing someone was watching him, Chase looked up. Their eyes locked, and for a moment, she felt a jolt of electricity flow through her. The flash of recognition in her eyes turned into a warmth that threatened to consume her. She saw his mouth open and close, gaping slightly, as though he didn't know what to say.

Feeling his wife tense, James looked in the direction of the disturbance. Catching sight of Chase, he immediately scowled. Zoey felt the hot pressure of his hand on the small of her back again as he led her away from where they had stood to somewhere across the room, far away from the one person she needed the most.


	12. Quinn's POV 3

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just some of the plot.

A/N: Okay, after a bout of writer's block, I'm back! And hopefully better than ever. For some odd reason, Quinn's POV is the only one written in first person. However, I will remedy that with this chapter.

"But you promised," Quinn all but whined over the cell phone as she paced anxiously in front of her car. She had been waiting for her husband to show up—he was taking a few days off to attend the reunion with her. Or he said he was going to. As it was, he was an hour late, and her temper was on tender hooks. She felt bad for anyone who accidentally set her off. Unless, of course, that person was Mark. Then, she'd rip into him with glee. She had a feeling she was just about to.

"I'm sorry, honey," Mark said, his usually monotone voice dampened by a hint of sadness. Or at least, it sounded like it. Knowing Mark, it wasn't real sadness. Just a line so that he wouldn't receive the worst of her wrath. "It's paying time and a half, and we could really use the money. It's in Florida, and I'll only be gone a few days."

"It's our _ten_ year reunion, Mark. We haven't seen the gang in ten years. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"I said I was sorry."

"Sorry's not good enough this time, Mark."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know—keep a promise?"

"And be out several hundred dollars? Honey, we'll find something else to do together next weekend. I promise."

"That's a big word for you, Mark."

"Come on, Quinn. Don't be like this."

"Be like what?" Quinn was a nanosecond away from losing it. She tried to keep her cool, as her neighbors had enough to gossip about with them finding her yelling at her husband in her driveway. But, by God, six months of knowing he was doing his secretary was enough to make a girl crazy. She was sure she could dig up some Quinnvention to use on him.

"Nothing. Never mind. Look, just throw my suitcase you packed for the reunion in the front hall and I'll pick it up when I swing by the house, okay?"

"Mark—" she was cut off by a high-pitched female voice in the background saying something she couldn't make out.

"Honey, I've got to go. Have fun at the reunion. I'll see you next week." There was a _click_, and he was gone. Quinn growled and kicked the bumper of her car. All that did was cause a pain in her foot, an increase in her anger, and some loud cursing. She angrily tossed her cell phone through the open window into the front seat and stormed back into the house.

_How dare he?_ she thought, stomping loudly up the stairs. _How dare he call me 'honey'? When he's betraying me like this? What is wrong with him?_ She pulled the suitcase she'd packed for him out of the closet and hoisted it onto the bed. Shaking with rage, and panting a bit, she unzipped it. Inside were a weekend's worth of clothes, neatly folded into four rows—underwear, shirts, pants, and socks. With a stifled scream, she ripped the clothes out of their resting place and tossed them around her. Socks went flying, hitting vases filled with flowers, their TV, knocking over Mark's clock. A shirt flew and landed on the doorknob. Another covered the bookcase. Pants were scattered over the floor like war victims.

She eyed the underwear, the only thing she hadn't tossed out of the suitcase, and had a wicked idea. A grin spread over her face as she turned away from the clothes. Hurrying to the closet, she reached for a box marked _Quinnventions_, and pulled it down. Judging from the dust, the thing hadn't been touched in ages, and for the life of her, she couldn't remember the last time she'd invented something. _It's been too long,_ she thought, as she blew across it's surface and lifted one of the flaps. Inside were a dozen or so odd gadgets, and at least two jars filled with neon goop. She pulled out a vial filled with a white powder, corked at the top with a crumbling black rubber stopper. _Excellent. _Her last invention, made for some reason she couldn't identify, had been her own version of an itching powder.

Being Quinn, however, she hadn't just stopped there. The powder, when applied to a person's skin, would experience a delayed itch. Five minutes after application, a furious itch that could not be scratched would erupt. And as if that wasn't enough, five minutes after that, an array of purple and green pustules would be added to the itch. The worst thing about it? The itch didn't stop for at least a week. And the more you were exposed, the longer the itch went on. The pustules eventually went away within days, but the itch would stay.

Quinn grinned evilly to herself. She felt like her old genius self again, prized for her brain, rather than her monotonous company. She felt empowered, and a rush of high school memories had come back. She had no idea what she'd originally intended the powder for, but she knew what she was going to do with it now.

Taking all four pairs of Mark's underwear from the suitcase, she lay them, inside out, on the bed in front of her, a towel she'd grabbed from the laundry basket underneath to shield the bed. She had to sleep there, too, after all. Uncorking the vial, she leaned over her prey and tapped it, three times each, into the pieces of cloth. With an extra tap for good measure in each pair, she corked the bottle again. She felt satisfied. One thing about Quinn her husband had forgotten was that she was not someone to be trifled with. She had no problem with getting revenge. And after his phone call, she had snapped. _Let's see how much fun he has this weekend with her now,_ she thought to herself, taking each pair carefully and re-folding them.

She gathered the scattered clothes and put them to rights, returning the suitcase and the room to it's original pristine collection. Looking at her watch, she saw that she was half an hour away from missing her flight. With a succinct oath, she dashed out the door after hastily shoving the box and the powder back into the closet.

She'd made it to the airport with ten minutes to spare. Breathless and exhausted, she checked her bags, displayed her boarding pass, and found her seat. Settling down comfortably, she smiled again to herself as she thought of the "fun" Mark was going to have this weekend. It was sure to make the return home a little more interesting.

Somewhere over Ohio, she dozed off, lulled to sleep by the constant humming of the engine and the motion of the plane. Her sleep was dreamless and deep, so much so that she had to be shaken awake by a stewardess, lest she be whisked back home by a return flight.

Yawning and stretching, she made her way to the baggage claim. It was, thankfully, not that crowded. She was a bit cranky, having been woken up from a delightful nap, and was still fizzling from the conversation she'd had with Mark. She wasn't sure she could take that much more stress. Spotting her bag, she picked it up by the handle and dragged it off the conveyor belt. She groaned under the weight. Apparently, her anger earlier, and her rush had jaded her memory of the weight of her suitcase. _What did I put in here, bricks?_ She huffed aloud, then started to lug it in the direction of the shuttle bus parked outside, waiting to take her to her hotel.

She'd almost fallen asleep again, and it was as she was on the brink of sleep that she realized how little of it she'd gotten recently. Her anxiety over her husband had caused her to toss and turn every night for the past few months. She didn't even know the meaning of the phrase "restful sleep", and she hadn't had a dream in God knows how long. _Okay, nap…check._ But a quick glance at her watch told her a nap was not in her schedule. The reunion started in an hour. Crap.

Quinn hated being hurried. This was the second time today, and it was only putting her in a worse mood. She took a deep swig from the soda she'd gotten from the vending machine in the hall and dashed into her hotel room's shower. In no time, she was out, dried, dressed, caffeinated, and ready to go. She hoped. She sat down on the bed and fiddled with her fingers, waiting for the call from the front desk to inform her that the cab she had called to take her to P.C.A. had arrived.

She didn't have to wait long. Five minutes later, the call was made, the ringing of the phone startling her as it shrilled through the empty room. As she worked to calm her pounding heart, she made her way downstairs and out into the cab.

The ride was shorter than she expected, and she grinned at the familiar purple and aqua sign loomed in front of them, with the "and girls" plaque tacked underneath significantly less weathered than the one above, proclaiming P.C.A. a school for boys. She had been thrown back ten years in time, and she loved it. She threw the fare to the cab driver and nearly dove out the door and ran for the gym.

The smell inside brought her back, to so many horrible gym classes with Coach Keller. But she didn't care. She felt at home for the first time in a decade. She milled around by the entrance, searching the crowd for familiar faces. With the lighting being rather dim, she didn't find any, and chose instead to migrate to the refreshment table.

While the fare looked like it fit in more at a middle school dance than a high-school reunion, she was thankful for the food. She hadn't eaten since this morning, and her stomach growled angrily at her, yelling at her to _yes, reach for the pretzels!_ She took a handful and leaned back against the table, content to people watch until she found a few familiar faces. Around her, people were chatting and filling small paper plates. She saw a man out of the corner of her eye scooping bright red punch into a plastic cup, but since she didn't recognize him, paid him no mind. She wasn't really in the mood to socialize with anyone but the gang, anyway.

"Here," she heard a voice from right above her head say. A glass of punch was extended toward her. "With how many pretzels you've been eating in the last five minutes, you're going to need this." Quinn looked, and found that she'd made quite a dent in the bowl of pretzels without realizing it.

"Oh, thank you," she took the glass and turned to look at the man who's offered it to her. She looked up, and into a pair of very familiar eyes. She saw recognition register in them, replaced quickly by shock.

"Quinn?"

"Logan?"


	13. Chase's POV 3

Disclaimer: I own nothing except parts of the plot

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except parts of the plot**

**A/N: Hey, guys. Sorry I've been gone so long, I just started college, and I've been a little distracted. I know there were requests for more Quogan this chapter, but I think Chase needs a chance. Therefore, this chapter is about him. **

Chase whistled through his teeth and stuck his hand in the pockets of the jeans he'd thrown on this morning. He wasn't much for dress clothes, and he figured these people had seen him in worse when he was in high school. That certainly explained the plain flannel shirt he wore. Meh. He never was one to care for appearances. His bushy hair had cured him of any hope at being anything other than the boy next door.

He was milling around near the punch table, absent-mindedly swirling a glass of the vibrantly red liquid around as he surveyed the room. Everyone had changed so much; he couldn't see anyone he recognized. He felt foolish and out of place. Where were Michael and Logan? Well, Logan probably wouldn't show. Logan had cut his ties with P.C.A. the same time he cut his ties with Quinn. He probably just threw the letter away when he received it. But surely Michael would jump at the chance to come and see all his old friends. Michael was the only one oblivious to the tension in the group that could be cut with a knife.

He took a sip of the punch and grimaced. It was obviously one of those powdered juice drinks, though someone had added too much sugar and too much water. It was like drinking weak tea. Rubbing his tongue over the roof of his mouth to rid himself of the taste, he set his glass down on the table.

He looked up and glanced around the gym. Someone had certainly done a bang-up job on decorating. The purple and blue streamers were hanging haphazardly from the walls, some ripped and fluttering in the breeze. The balloons that had been put up with masking tape threatened to descend on the alumni, and a few lone pieces of tape indicated that some already had. _Was the decorating this bad when I was in high school?_ Remembering junior prom, he thought not.

He didn't even know what possessed him to come this evening. The only thing he felt like doing was help Rebecca move out of the house, so he could get on with his life. Something in the back of his mind nibbled on him until he got into the car and drove in direction of his alma mater. And now that he was here, he didn't know what to do.

_Chase._ He looked up, wondering who had called his name. Seeing that no one was beckoning him over, he frowned in confusion. His eyes wandered over the rest of the gym, coming to rest on a small blonde being overshadowed by a tall man. His heart lurched painfully in his chest, and he fought the urge to rub the spot with his hand. _Zoey_, he wished to cry out. Her eyes looked at him with a pleading air, and he longed to rush over and make whatever it was that was wrong right again. No matter their past, he was still in love with her.

He was about to make his way over when the man beside her turned to look at him. _James Garrett_, he realized with a sickening dread. So she had married him. He hadn't exactly expected her to be single, but he would have thought she would have somebody….better, in college. James gave him a withering look before tightening his grip on Zoey and turning them away from him. Chase's jaw tightened from anger. How dare he think he could control her? Then he shook his head. It wasn't his concern anymore, his feelings didn't matter anymore.

"Chase?" a familiar voice called his name and he turned around suddenly. The very friendly face of his former roommate stood in front of him, a wide smile plastered on his face.

"Michael?"

"I knew it was you! I'd know that bushy head anywhere!" Michael came forward and pulled Chase into a tight hug, squeezing his ribs so hard he was afraid quite a few of them were broken.

"Yeah, it just won't go away, I guess," he said, running his hand through the mass of hair once Michael had let him go.

"That is one unfortunate head of hair, my friend," Michael clapped him on the shoulder. "So, tell me, what have you been up to these past ten years?"

"I write a column for a local newspaper, nothing big." Chase shrugged and put his hands back in his pockets.

"How's the wife?" Michael nudged him conspiratorially. Michael had received an invitation to the wedding, but had been sick that week, and was unable to attend. Chase gave a wry smile and held up his left hand, now bare of the wedding band he'd worn for the past five years. Michael's eyes widened.

"Divorce?" he asked. Chase nodded. "When did that happen?"

"A couple weeks ago, actually."

"What happened?"

"We just realized we weren't in love with each other anymore."

"Dude, I'm sorry,"

"I'm not," Chase gave a mysterious half-smile and shrugged his shoulders. Michael raised an eyebrow, and opened his mouth to comment when a young woman ran up and grabbed his arm.

"Michael! There you are!" the woman smiled up at him. "I've been looking all over for you! I was afraid you'd gone off to torture Mr. Bender or something."

"Me? Torture old teachers?" Michael feigned an insulted glare. "I thought you knew me better than that!"

"I _do_ know you better than that," she laughed. "Which is why I'm not letting you out of my sight for the rest of the evening."

"Killjoy,"

"Oh, but you love me anyway."

"That's what they tell me," Michael kissed her tenderly on the forehead. Chase looked at him with amusement, and quizzically raised his eyebrows. Michael quickly backtracked. "Oh, man, I'm sorry. You know Lisa." He gestured to the woman by his side.

"Lisa? Lisa Perkins?"

"Well, it's been Lisa Barrett for awhile now," she said, flashing him a smile and holding up her hand. Unlike Chase, her left hand was adorned with a simple gold band.

"Wow," Chase searched for something to say. He and Lisa had never been close in high school, and he had no idea what to talk about. "You look great!"

"Thanks! You too," she said. She added teasingly, "But still with the bushy hair."

"Yeah, it's a curse," Chase chuckled. "I think I caught a bird nesting in it last week."

"Oh, poor bird," Lisa ribbed. "I hope he was okay."

"I'm sure he was fine," Chase smiled. "And now he's got an interesting story to tell his friends back in the tree."

"Oh! Speaking of friends," Lisa's eyes lit up. "You'll never guess who I just ran into!"

"Who?" Michael looked curious.

"Zoey!"

"Zoey Brookes?"

"Well, she used to be," Lisa said. "Did you know she and James got married?"

"Really?" Michael seemed surprised. "I didn't think they would."

"I know, I didn't think so, either," Lisa remarked. "I always thought it would be Zoey and Ch—" She trailed off, realizing that Chase was still standing in front of her. She flushed. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Chase shrugged it off. He picked up his forgotten punch and took a deep gulp. "I'm over it." _What a lie. _Lisa still looked apologetic, and Chase could see her fumbling for something to say.

"Look!" she exclaimed. "There they are!" She gestured to a place at her left, and both Chase and Michael glanced over. Sure enough, Zoey and James stood, milling about against one of the walls. James still had one hand possessively grasping Zoey around the waist. "Come on, let's go!"

"Wait, what?" Chase sputtered, choking on the swig of punch he'd just swallowed.

"We're at a reunion, the point is to re-connect!" Lisa grabbed Michael with one hand and Chase with the other, dragging them off in the direction of Zoey and James. _Bad idea, bad idea._ His mind was flashing red lights at him all over the place. He was sure if he actually had to _interact_ with them, he was going to do something he'd regret. Or to embarrass himself. Or both.

"Zoey! It's so nice to see you!" Lisa released him when they arrived, and he stumbled a little to his right. He righted himself and stood awkwardly, his hands shoved in his pockets and a blank stare on his face.

"Hello, Lisa," Zoey smiled and gave her old friend a hug. Chase noted with disgust that James wouldn't even let go of her for that. His hands balled into fists in his pockets, even though he had no right to be angry. They _were_ married after all. And here he was, acting like a jealous schoolboy. He really needed to get a grip. "I see you found Michael."

"Oh, yeah," Lisa patted her husband on the shoulder affectionately. "I'm keeping him on a short leash tonight. Especially since I caught him hanging around _this_ guy." She playfully shoved at Chase.

"Oh, Chase wouldn't do anything," Michael said. "He's too good. Now, if _Logan_ were around, there'd be some real fun going on…"

"Hello, Chase," Zoey said, ignoring Michael and turning towards him. There it was again. That pleading look. A lump formed in Chase's throat as he saw the sad look on her face. What could be making her so miserable?

"Hello, Zoey," he nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw James' eyes narrow at their interaction. Weird. Zoey's eyes darted quickly to the floor, and she crossed her hands in front of her.

"So, James and Zoey, you _must_ fill me in on all that's been going on with you these past ten years!" Lisa said, flashing another luminous smile. "It seems like just yesterday that we were all worried over our midterms! And look at us! All grown up and married…"

It was at this point that Chase tuned out. There was nothing he could really input into the conversation; his recent divorce made him devoid of much of any comment on matrimony, and so he bit his tongue and observed instead. Zoey was still tucked into herself, giving small smiles now and again at one of Lisa's comments. He noticed, though, that the smiles were half-hearted attempts at normalcy. The smiles barely reached her lips, and most definitely didn't reach her eyes. Chase frowned, and he had that strange ache in his heart again.

James, he noticed, kept one ear on the conversation and one eye on him at the same time. There was hostility in James' expression Chase hadn't received from anyone in his life, and it was a little disconcerting. What reason did James have to hate him so much? He got the girl, wasn't that enough for him? He saw the arm that seemed permanently attached to Zoey's waist tighten possessively. And was it just him, or did she shy away from her husband? Chase shook his head. He must be seeing things.

"This is Jake, and there's David," Chase snapped back to attention as Lisa pulled out pictures of her children. "Jake is two, and David is just barely six months."

"They're adorable, Lisa," Zoey looked over the pictures quickly, and handed them back.

"Thank you! I've always thought so, but I'm a little biased."

"Well, you deserve to be. They'll be handsome boys when they get older."

"Oh, don't even talk to me about them getting older!" Lisa chuckled. "Jake just started in a play group twice a week, and I cried like a baby."

"Just think," James interjected into the conversation for the first time. "Soon, they'll be off to P.C.A. and causing just as much trouble as their father did."

"I hope not," Lisa smiled affectionately at her husband before turning back to the group. "What about your little one?" Chase's ears perked up. Child? They had children?

"Well, you see—" Zoey started, before her husband cut her off.

"Children? We can barely take care of ourselves!" he laughed, giving Zoey a pointed look.

"What?" Lisa looked confused. "I could have sworn—"

"It must have been someone else," James said definitely, giving the indication to everyone that the conversation was over.

"Must have been," Lisa mused, putting the pictures of her boys back in her purse. The lights suddenly dimmed, and the honeyed melody of a love song burst out of the speakers at the far right of the room. Lisa and Michael excused themselves, and found a secluded spot on the dance floor. Chase waited for James and Zoey to do the same, but they remained where they were, James looking around the room, and Zoey still looking at her folded hands. Chase cleared his throat, and took the initiative.

"Zoey, would you like to dance?" he asked, extending his hand towards her. Her eyes flew up in surprise, as if someone had just doused her in ice water. James threw daggers in Chase's direction, but they went ignored.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," James said, taking a step closer to Zoey. And this time, Chase wasn't seeing things. Zoey definitely flinched as James' hip made contact with hers.

"I would love to," Zoey said, looking at James and then at Chase. She still had that deer-in-the-headlights look, and was trembling slightly as she took Chase's hand.

God, it felt good to have her in his arms again. Too good. His heart ached again as she sidled close to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. She still wore the same perfume, he'd noticed, and suddenly he wasn't twenty-eight. He was seventeen, and it was prom again. Back before any of this even happened.

"Hope you don't mind squished toes," he said, smiling. "I still can't dance." She let out a breath as he trampled over her foot. "See?"

"I don't mind," she reassured him, giving him a genuine smile. It still didn't reach her eyes, but at least it was heartfelt.

"So, what's up with James?" Chase asked, nodding in his direction. James looked murderous, his arms crossed menacingly over his chest as he leaned against the wall. Oh, well. For all he cared, James could go to hell. Nobody was taking this away from him.

"He's just overprotective," Zoey chuckled, but Chase noticed her trembling increase as she flitted her eyes toward her husband.

"Seems a little obsessive to me," Chase muttered, rolling his eyes.

"No, he's just…" Zoey trailed off, looking for the right word. "James."

"He won't, like, drag me out back and kill me with his bare hands, will he?" he cracked a smile, hoping Zoey would do the same. No such luck. That blank, terrified look was still there.

"No, not you," she said, and then sighed as though she'd said something she shouldn't have. Chase raised an eyebrow and twirled her away from where James was standing; hoping the change in venue would get her mind of off him. And so that he could stop feeling that damn stare bore holes in the back of his head. They danced silently for awhile, enjoying each other's company. Or, at least, Chase was enjoying Zoey's. Immensely. He couldn't say the same about her. Her eyes kept darting back to James; as if afraid he would come over and break up their dance.

All too soon, the song ended, and it was time to return her to James. God, he wished he didn't have to. Reluctantly, he turned her back over, and was a bit annoyed when James grabbed her arm and tugged her to him rather roughly.

"Well, I have to say you are still a fabulous dancer, Zoey," Chase said, after a small silence. "Thank you." She nodded to him and moved her hair back away from her shoulder with a hand.

Chase went to bid himself goodbye, as he was pretty sure if he stayed any longer his life would be in danger, when he noticed it. A large, purplish bruise was visible on the curve where her neck met her shoulder. It looked recent, though he could see an older one underneath it, yellowish-brown at the edges. And suddenly, it all made sense. The terrified looks. The pleading face. The cryptic statement she made while they were dancing. The bastard was hurting her. And there was no way Chase was going to let him get away with it.


	14. Logan's POV 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except part of the plot. **

**A/N: I'm not dead! Just a bit stressed out. College life is slowly killing me. But, finally, here is an update to **_**Lost and Found.**_

"_Logan?"_

"_Quinn?"_

This was beyond awkward. This had transcended awkward two minutes ago and was now entering the phase of being entirely uncomfortable. Logan drummed his fingers on the table behind him and fiddled with the buttons on his jacket as Quinn avoided his gaze and played with the handle of her handbag.

"So…" it was Quinn who broke the silence, obviously unsure of what to say. She bit her lip apprehensively and Logan felt a rush of nostalgia. _She used to do that when she worked on Quinnventions. Or when she was nervous. Or when I said something really sweet._ He shook his head and dislodged the last thought. _Forget it, Reese. That shipped has sailed, thanks to you._

"So…" he repeated, feeling foolish. He looked around. "This is some party."

"Yeah," she agreed, looking around as well. "Though I hope you're being sarcastic." She grimaced at the cheap crepe paper and half-inflated balloons that were falling on unsuspecting people as they danced.

"I am," he reassured her, and they lapsed into silence a few moments more. His gaze swept the room once more. "You know, I don't remember any of these people being in our class."

"I know; I haven't seen a familiar face either," she said. "Though people change, I suppose." _I know. _His mind spat so bitterly he could taste the loathing his subconscious had for him on the back of his tongue. _After all, you changed, didn't you? Went straight from knight-in-shining armor to idiot wrapped in aluminum foil. If you're looking for conversation topics, why don't you tell her what you've been up for these past ten years? Tell her you don't go one night without seeing her face in your dreams, or that the touch of a woman burns your skin like hot oil, or that you can't look at little kids walking down the street with their parents because that's where you expected to be with her at this point in your life?_ Logan told his mind to go to hell, though couldn't find it within himself to negate the words; they were all true.

"I guess," he said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He cleared his throat and asked the question that had been plaguing him. "So, how's married life? You married Mark, right?" Confusion masked her face for a moment, and he saw her almost absentmindedly twirl her wedding band around her finger.

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"Michael seemed to take it upon himself to see that I was still informed about the group," he shrugged. "He sent me e-mails when you got married, when Zoey got married, when Chase got married, when his kids were born…I get one from him every month or so."

"Oh," Quinn frowned for a moment. "Umm….Mark is…Mark."

"Still the same old Delfiggalo, huh?"

"Not quite," she said, her voice ambiguous. She deftly changed topics. "He works as an accountant. He has quite a head for numbers. He's quite successful; he's not at home much anymore. But he enjoys what he's doing, so I can't complain." However, there was a trace of sadness and anger in her voice that he couldn't help but pick up on.

"Oh, well, good for him," Logan forced a half-smile. _No, it's not good for him. Admit it, you wanted him homeless and miserable._ "Is he here?"

"Umm…no," Quinn said, avoiding his gaze again. Logan knew he was being very forward and rude, but had stopped caring at the beginning of this conversation. "He had to go to a conference or something this weekend. So, it's just me."

"Really? I didn't know accountants had conferences."

"Neither did I," she admitted. "But he said it was very important, and that I'd have to find someone to take care of Albert while he was away."

"Albert?" Logan recoiled in horror. They had children? He couldn't even imagine what a child of Mark Delfiggalo would look like, but he was pretty sure he didn't want to know. "Oh, your son?"

"Son?" Quinn chuckled a little bit, as though the question were funny. "No, Albert is our cat. He showed up on our doorstep a year ago and decided to stick around."

"And being you, you couldn't toss him out," Logan smiled again, this one genuine. It seemed she hadn't changed _that_ much since high school.

"Right," Quinn smiled back at him. "He had no place to go, and I liked having him around. Mark wasn't as fond of him, but since he works all day, he doesn't really have to see that much of Albert." Figures. Anything that makes Quinn happy Mark would detest. The selfish pig. Logan made a mental note to send Quinn a kitten after this was all over.

"Poor Albert."

"No, Albert doesn't like Mark either, so the hatred is mutual."

"Smart cat," Logan mumbled to himself. "So, what do you do for a living? Something scientific?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"I teach science at the local high school. It's less science than babysitting, but I enjoy it. It gives me an excuse to be creative."

"Really?" Logan couldn't envision her as a teacher. The job didn't have the challenge and intrigue he knew she craved in a job. He always imagined her at a job in NASA or something equally as hard, where she could rise to the top and shine. Not a dead-end teaching job.

"Yeah," she looked down at her wedding band again, and Logan wondered if the reason she went into teaching had been more for Mark and for herself. "So, what about you? I'm pretty sure I've seen your name stuck onto some box-office hits lately."

"Directing has it's ups and downs," he said, thinking of the Candy incident. "And it's not always the most fun job in the world, but it's something to do during the day." _Something to do that keeps your mind off of her, you mean._

"I thought you always wanted to be a director. You don't like it?"

"Working with prima-donna actors gets tiring. Every one of them thinks they can be a better director than I can, even though I'm the one who went to film school and have twenty films under my belt."

"Sounds frustrating."

"Sometimes. Most times it's just irritating." Silence fell over them once more, and both looked anywhere else but each other, trying to stem the awkwardness that pervaded the conversation. The strains of a romantic slow song drifted over to them from where the DJ stood a few feet away, and Logan watched at the crowd coupled up, eager to get out onto the dance floor before the lyrics began. _Go ahead,_ his mind taunted him. _Ask her to dance._

"Would you like to dance?" the words flew from his mouth so fast he almost turned around to see who had said them. Shaking off his surprise, he extended a hand towards her, giving a shy smile. Quinn looked at the hand and back to his face.

"Logan…."

"It's just a dance, Quinn."

"I—okay," there was no smile, no happiness in her words as she took his hand and he led her to the dance floor. Expertly, he placed the hand he was holding on his shoulder and lifted her other gently with his.

The music left enough time and low enough noise level for conversation, but neither made a move to speak, instead gliding flawlessly along the polished wood surface. It felt like old times again, and Logan clutched her instinctively tighter to him to hold onto that feeling for even a minute more. Without thinking, he broke the silence.

"Quinn," he lifted her chin to meet his gaze, and wondered for a moment if she could feel the heat and love radiating from him at that very moment. "You're so beautiful." On impulse, he caressed her cheek with the pad of his thumb before laying a gentle kiss there, inhaling her scent, unchanged since high school. He heard her breath catch, and felt her stiffen in his arms.

"Logan, I can't," she stopped the dance mid-turn, and pulled swiftly out of his embrace. "I—I have to go." And with that, she ran to the nearest exit, leaving Logan standing foolishly by himself on the dance floor, couples around him looking at him pityingly. Logan swore loudly to himself and lowered himself onto the nearby bleachers, holding his head in his hands. _What have I done?_


	15. Zoey's POV 4

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just part of the plot. **

**A/N: So, ready to find out what happens now that Chase knows about James? Hold on to your seats, because it's going to be a wild ride!**

_Oh, crap._ Zoey felt the blood drain from her face as she saw shock quickly replaced by rage in Chase's eyes. He looked from the bruise on her shoulder to her eyes, and back again before raking his stare over the rest of her body, looking for bruises and marks that were covered by clothing. _Need to get out, need to leave...now!_ her mind screamed at her to run as far away from the building, as far away from Chase and James, as she possibly could.

"I—I need to get some air," she stammered, her hand moving quickly to cover the purplish spot from Chase's scrutiny. James frowned at her, and the grip he had at her waist tightened. She wriggled a little to get away. "I'll be right back. It's just stuffy in here, that's all."

"Fine," James conceded, throwing a glare towards Chase. He leaned over and gave her a kiss, one that reminded her of what he used to be like before they were married. The ache in her only grew, as the realization that it was for Chase's benefit and not because of his feelings for her hit her forcefully. James let his arm fall to his side as he pulled away, and she gave a nervous smile before walking calmly towards the door. She was keenly aware of both men staring at her as she stepped out of the gym and into the cool air of the May evening.

The wind whipped around her as she softly closed the heavy gym door. A storm was rolling in; black clouds were encroaching on the traditional California sunset, promising rain, thunder and lightening, the first of the summer storms. Taking a deep breath, she threw off of her sandals and ran.

_Faster, keep going!_ Her mind urged her, and her feet obeying. Her lungs ached, and the gravel from well-travelled roads bit into her bare feet. Memories bombarded her as she passed places she used to visit as a teenager. She flew past the fountain, her heart giving a particularly strong tug.

_"Do you want to be alone?" she asked, the rain soaking through her thin nightgown. Chase didn't look up, but shook his head as sobs shook his thin frame. _

…………

_"Let's see what you've got," she gave a flirtatious smile and half-joking challenge as she pressed the play button on the small radio. She didn't want his dancing practice to go to waste, after all. Or, at least, that's what she told herself. The ulterior motive of having him hold her close she shoved away. _

The purple and aqua flag emblazoned with a stingray and PCA's emblem on it snapped violently in the wind like a tethered bird waiting to be freed. She felt nauseous as she passed it.

_"Oh, my gosh! Are you okay?" Zoey ran towards the boy who'd just crashed his bike into the flagpole. That fall looked painful. She breathed a sigh of relief when he stood up, wrestling with the flag and trying to make light of the situation. _

_"Just checking the flag," he smiled, tossing the offending piece of fabric behind him. "It's a flag."_

_"You're bleeding!"_

_"Yes, well, that tends to happen when I get wounded," he looked at the wound before looking back at her. Well, he wasn't the most coordinated person on the planet, but she felt an unspeakable connection to him. _

She sprinted past the dorms, students jumping out of the way quickly, so as not to be run over. So many memories assaulted her that they were starting to give her a headache, though that may be from running so much.

_"I love you, Zoey…" the sincerity in his voice made her heart melt, and the goofy grin on his face made her smile. How could they have ever been just friends?_

The wind howled in her ears and made her eyes water as she made her way towards the beach, though at this point, she couldn't tell whether the tears streaming down her face were from the wind or from the snap of her well-trained emotions finally giving way.

She collapsed onto the soft sand, digging her palms into the silt as she tried to catch her breath. She panted and heaved, sobbing out her frustrations of previous years and of yesterday and of tonight onto the ground. The waves crashing harshly against the rocks a few yards away echoed her almost sympathetically, and it only made her cry harder.

_"You're lame at throwing rocks," she gave him a piteous look. She should be mad, furious, at him for tricking her, yet seeing him sitting on the beach so dejectedly had dissolved it. It was hard to resist his sincerity and his charm, even if he didn't know he had any._

_"What?" he asked incredulously, cracking that teasing half-smile she loved. She stood up and picked up a pebble. _

_"You have the snap your wrist and then—"she let go with a forceful hurl of the pebble, smiling in delight when it skipped to emphasis her point. _

Zoey coughed and sputtered a few times, trying unsuccessfully to get a grip on her emotions. She bit her lip in an effort to stop sobbing; only succeeding in filling her mouth with the iron taste of blood. She ran a finger over the throbbing wound, and cursed softly when it came away with a smudge of red on it. The thought of one more mark on her body caused her to sob harder, disgusted with the prospect of having to trudge back up to the school. The rain that had been threatening to fall all day began to mist down upon the beach, settling on her bare skin and causing a shiver to go up her spine. She gazed out at the waves and contemplated walking out into them and never returning.

"Why didn't you tell me?" an angry, breathless voice demanded behind her. _Shit._ Zoey turned around slowly, wiping away her tears with the edge of her zip-up sweatshirt. She looked up to find Chase standing a few feet away, his face like chiseled granite, panting and clenching his fists at his sides. She blinked in surprise; she'd thought it was her husband coming to get her.

"_Why didn't you tell me?" _he repeated himself slowly, looking at her intently. She saw hurt and anger reflected in his eyes as he stood in the strengthening rain.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the words flew out of her mouth automatically, from so many lies told to neighbors, co-workers, to herself. She self-consciously covered the bruise at the base of her neck with a hand and nervously bit her lip. One part of her wanted to tell Chase everything, needed to tell him everything. Another, more powerful part of her wanted to run as far away from him as she possibly could. However, she remained rooted to the spot. Chase growled angrily.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Zoey," he closed the distance between them and all but threw her arm away from her body, half of the nasty purplish-gray bruise glared like a neon sign, the other half hidden by her sweatshirt. "He hits you, doesn't he?" She said nothing, biting her lip again. He closed his hands around her upper arms tightly, bringing her close to him. "_Doesn't he?"_

"I don't know what—" she began again, an instinctive defense mechanism kicking in.

"Dammit, Zo, don't you _dare_ lie to me," he shook her gently in frustration. "Don't lie. Not to me."

"Yes, he does," she stated plainly, stepping forcefully out of his grasp and gasping in shock when she stepped right into an oncoming wave. "Happy now?" He looked at her with surprise, his mouth hanging open.

"Why in the world would I be _happy?_" he asked, his voice dropping the anger it held a few moments before and adopting a grave forced calm. "God, Zo—why didn't you tell me? Or anyone?"

"It's my problem," she said, looking into his eyes. Her feelings for him immediately resurfaced, though she tried to push them back. "Not anyone else's. My problem. My deficiency."

"Deficiency?" he looked at her as though she'd grown another head. He shook his head adamantly and taking a step closer to her.

With tenderness she hadn't felt in a long time, he took her hand in his and lifted it. He gave the sleeve of her sweatshirt a hefty tug, sliding off her arm and into the oncoming wind before she could stop it. Without anything to hold it up, it slid off her other arm as well, pooling in a maroon pile on the wet sand behind her. She picked it up hastily to cover herself, clutching it tight to her chest. Chase said nothing, but seized the garment and tossed it nonchalantly over his shoulder. She felt exposed, embarrassed, and she tried once more to cover herself, bringing her arms up to hide her torso from his smoldering gaze, though at this point, it was futile.

She saw the incoming storm suddenly echoed in Chase's expression as he took her in; lightning flashed out on the ocean, though it had nothing on the fury growing inside him, she could tell. Old, yellow patches on her arms crisscrossed with newer, darker ones; red marks that had yet to fade from recent arguments glared like brands on her shoulders. The tank top she wore once covered completely by the sweatshirt, now showed a large, angry red mark on her collarbone, the result of a swift and painful push into the wall. Chase leaned over gently to caress one of the nastier bruises, frowning gravely when she automatically flinched away from him.

He flit his hand down her arm, matching his fingers to the purple gray bars of a tight grip on her forearm. He traced the red mark at her collar bone in a way that was almost intimate, his breath catching. He moved on to the yellow patch on her other shoulder, a particularly painful reminder of a fight with her drunken husband. His jaw clenched even tighter as he found the large, half-moon burn scar on her upper arm from being shoved onto a hot stove. Her skin was a map of pain, and she couldn't even begin to imagine what he was thinking.

"He did this?" Chase asked suddenly, his voice a mixture of amazement and repulsion. He looked up from the arm he was examining and stared at her intently. "All of this?"

"Yes," she whispered, nodding while tears stung the corners of her eyes. He said nothing, instead enfolding her into his arms tightly. She grabbed handfuls of his shirt and buried her face in his shoulder, grateful for his familiar scent, warmth, and understanding. He held her painfully tight, and her bruises cried out in protest, but she was beyond caring. God, she'd needed this. She'd needed him. She'd needed him for ten years, and she was only now beginning to realize how much.

Eventually, he pulled away, though ran his hands up and down her arms as though he wasn't quite ready to let her go completely. They stood for a few moments, saying nothing, simply enjoying being in each other's company. Suddenly, Chase stopped and looked down.

"What's this?" he asked. She followed his gaze and swore under her breath when she saw that he had found the white gauze covering the knife wound from yesterday. He balked at the red stain that showed on the white fabric. She quickly covered it with her hand.

"It's nothing."

"Let me see," he all but pried her fingers away, and then gently lifted the gauze away. She bit her lip as he gasped in horror. She automatically recoiled and went to cover the wound with her hand again. Chase caught it before she could and held it tightly.

"It's not that bad," she offered, watching as he examined the wound, which was an angry red around the edges and oozing blood. Any deeper, and she would have needed stitches, she realized belatedly as the oozing of blood steadily increased with the gauze removed. She looked up at Chase to gauge his reaction. He looked back at her with an expression of such shock, such disgust, and such rage that for a moment she was frightened.

"It's not that bad?" he repeated, shocked.

"It was bleeding a lot more yesterday," she said simply, taking the gauze from him and mopping up the line of blood that had been making its way down her arm.

"You have a gash in your arm that would make any self-respecting doctor cringe, and that's all you can say?"

"It's been much worse," she muttered. And it had. She remembered with perfect clarity broken bones, sprains, concussions, burns, and black eyes that had become her daily life. This was nothing she couldn't handle.

"What happened?"

"It was stupid. A fight. I didn't do something he told me to, and I made a sarcastic remark when he confronted me about it."

"Okay…but how does that lead to this?" he held up her arm for emphasis.

"I tried to leave when his back was turned," she took a deep breath. "So he went into the kitchen and got a knife. He handed it to me and told me to kill him. I wouldn't do it. He started swinging it at me, saying that one of us had to die for me to leave, and that I had to choose who it would be. When he went to swing it closer to me, it caught my arm."

"I see," Chase's jaw clenched again. He looked away from her and stared intently at the sand, not saying anything. After a few moments, she touched his arm.

"Chase?" he looked up and stared at her face. She wasn't sure how she looked at the moment, but his face changed into one of maniacal rage as he took in her expression and raked his gaze once more over her battered body.

"I'll kill him," the words flew suddenly from his mouth, and for second she was sure he must be joking. But as he pulled away from her and walked with long, loping strides back in the direction of P.C.A., she came to the sudden realization that he wasn't.

"Wait, what? Chase!" she grabbed her abandoned sweatshirt and tugged it back on, before hurrying to catch up with him.

He was finally within sight as they neared the gym. Students and random faculty scurried to get out of his way, not eager to be the target of his wrath. She stopped for a moment, taking a deep, panting breath.

"Chase!" she called, but he didn't turn around. Instead, he walked very deliberately up to the double doors leading into the gym and wrenched them open. She felt her blood run cold as he spoke.

"Garrett, you're a dead man!" he called. And then all hell broke loose.


	16. Quinn's POV 4

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: I'm back! After a brief period in which my internet wasn't working on my laptop (and guess where I keep all my fanfiction?), I'm back with an update to **_**Lost and Found. **_**Quinn this time, and her reaction to Logan at the reunion. For the record, I have no idea where these two are headed. They give me no indication of what should happen next. It's both exhilarating and frustrating. Reviews, as always are welcome. **

"Quinn," he lifted her chin with a finger, and the intense gaze he nailed her with made her pulse race and her breath catch in her throat. Gone was the arrogant teenager who had tried to seduce every girl at P.C.A., and in its place was a man with wants and needs she wasn't quite sure she was ready to dwell on. Both dying and dreading to hear what he said next, she froze. She could hear her pulse pound in her ears as he cupped her face with his hand, running the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone. "You're so beautiful." He leaned forward and brushed his lips where his thumb had been, so very, very gentle. The tenderness of the action made her want to weep, and the unexpected stab of emotion made her want to run. Fight or flight; basic biology. Drag him forward by the collar of his t-shirt and plant a searing kiss on those adorably pouty lips of his, or make her way out of there like a bat out of hell. Her heart chose the former, but that damn rational streak of hers pervaded and won once again.

"Logan, I can't," she pulled out of his grasp, missing the warmth and familiarity so much it made her heart ache. _Can't, or won't? _her mind taunted. "I-I have to go." Go somewhere where she wouldn't be liable to take him down in a show of unbridled passion. _Hooray for a lack of professionalism. _She told the small voice to go to hell and ran for the nearest exit.

She burst through the double doors leading outside, finding herself not on the gravel path leading to the rest of campus, but to a small sun-deck built overlooking the ocean. A tarnished plaque told her it was a gift from the senior class of five years ago. She smiled, remembering how her classes gift had been mediating yoga classes for the gym teacher, something she had heard he'd taken up, and that he'd stopped torturing his students with endless laps around the track.

She wrapped her arms around herself, more for emotional support than for the wind that had picked up. There were dark clouds on the horizon, and she hoped it wouldn't be forced back inside by the rain. Drumming her fingers on the wooden railing, she thought about her adult life, and felt ready to cry at the indignation of it all. She'd given up a promising career in medicine, or genetics, or _something_ to marry Mark, a man she didn't—had never, she realized now—loved at all. She didn't have her dream of a Nobel Prize, a loving husband, and three kids. She hadn't even come close. She had a cat, a cheating husband, and a mug on her desk that proclaimed her the world's best science teacher. And while she mourned her lost dream every now and again, she had come to accept her life as it was. But now—

But now Logan had walked back into the picture. The man she'd fallen for when she never thought she could. The man who showed her what love could be, what it should be. The man who had changed like a caterpillar into a butterfly before her very eyes, shedding the arrogant womanizing skin to become every woman's---her—dream. The man she once pictured spending the rest of her life with, of having that "typical Suburban" dream with. In fact, she'd imagined herself right here, at their ten-year reunion, endless times before they broke up. Walking around, seeing their old friends and classmates, while discussing their mutual success and passing around pictures of their (adorable) children. She flushed, embarrassed by her naive, school-girl fantasy. _But, wait. Logan was the one who walked out on __**you,**__remember? Before you even had a chance to tell him that when Mark kissed you, you felt nothing. To tell him that you loved him, Logan, and not "Mark the emotionless". He cut ties and run, didn't he?_ Her heart reminded the inner voice that it was partly her fault; she hadn't gone after him. God, she should have. Should have hopped a plane and gone to New York. It hadn't worked out so well for Chase and Zoey, but then again, he didn't have plans to come back, did he? Then this entire ten-year nightmare would have never existed, and her heart wouldn't feel achy and raw right now.

"Hmm…I didn't see this place pulling up," Logan's voice interrupted her train of thought, and she jumped a mile in the air at the sudden mental intrusion. She turned to look at him; he gave an apologetic half-smile for startling her and came to lean next to her on the railing. "It's nice." She nodded, a lump forming in her throat. He was close enough to touch, and her hands itched to; ten years was far too long. A passing breeze told her he still wore the same aftershave he did in high school, and she clenched her jaw against the wave of emotion it made her feel.

"You came out here to get away from me," he said after a moment. It might have been asked as a question, but the decisiveness in it turned it into a statement.

"Logan—" she wasn't sure what she was going to say, but was spared from deciding as he held up a hand to silence her.

"Wait," his gaze smoldered with something unreadalbe as he became deadly serious. "Before you say anything, I would like to say something."

"Okay," she nodded again, almost flinching when her voice came out trembling and nervous. He took a deep breath and pushed himself away from the railing.

"Ten years. It's been ten years since I last saw you in person. Ten years since I left P.C.A. And ten years since I've been happy," he looked up at her. "It's been hell for me, Quinn, you have to believe that." She did; his eyes held an odd dead look she'd never seen before. He paced frantically in front of her. "I never should have left P.C.A. It was the stupidest thing I've ever done, and I've paid for it for ten years. And I've made you pay for it, too. Ever since I walked out of your dorm room, I've hated myself." He let out a short laugh. "Did you know there hasn't been one night that I haven't dreamt of you? Of what our life would be like right now? A nice house, a few kids, a dog. Or alpaca, whatever.

Quinn, I haven't so much as glanced at another woman for a decade. I can stand to have them touch me; it physically hurts. I can't even look at little kids playing on the playground because it reminds me that I don't have that with you—the only person I ever wanted that with. Yeah, even back in high school. Did you know I planned on asking you to marry me on graduation day? I had a ring picked out and a plan and everything." He stopped his pacing and gripped her upper arms firmly. "_I love you, Quinn._ I've wanted to say that to you every day since I left. Every damn minute of every day. I'm still in love with you; being this close to you all night has been driving me crazy. I don't even know I managed to dance with you and not _show_ you how I feel."

"You did. That's why I came out here, remember?"

"More than that. I want to show you without words how I feel. I want you to feel what I feel every time I look at you; feel what I've always felt every time I've looked at you."

"Logan—"

"But I can't, because I've really screwed things up. You're married to Mark now. And it's killing me, because it's killing you," he released his death grip on her arms and moved to cup her cheek again. "You're not happy with him. That light I used to see in your eyes has gone out, the excitement over the unknown." He picked up her left hand and ran his thumb over her wedding ring. "You should be able to wear this with pride, not burden. Even if it's not me, you deserve happiness, Quinn." He released her with a sigh and stood back. "And now that I've said all that, now is your opportunity to hit me, tell me what a creep I am, and leave." It was said with a quirky half-grin in jest, but she could see how vunerable he was; even when they were dating, he was never this emotionally exposed. She looked down at the wooden floorboards, trying to absorb what he said while trying to formulate her own response.

"It's not just your fault," she said at last, watching as Logan's head shot up in confusion. "That we ended up here, instead of together. I mean, I _did_ let you walk out my dorm room. And I didn't come after you. Out of all the things I've regretted for the last ten years, I regret that the most." She looked down at her wedding band with more loathing than she had twenty minutes ago. "You're not the only one who's been having those dreams. I imagine what life with you would have been like every day. A house filled with life, with laughter…and love. Always a lot of love. That always remained the same. The house would change, the number of kids would change, but the love was always there." She paused, trying to get her thoughts in a coherent manner. "These past ten years with Mark—with the last three being married to him—have been terrible. I thought I could move on, I thought I could deal with a loveless marriage. I mean, I had my job and Albert to keep me company, right? But I can't, I really can't. I'm tired of pretending to be the happy housewife. Though, apparently, I'm not doing a good enough job of even pretending, considering Mark's off sleeping with his secretary—"

"He's what?!" Logan cut her off; in fact, he'd been trying to say something ever since she'd placed part of the blame on herself. She spoke again, stemming anything else that he would have said.

"It's actually not surprising," she sighed. "I just wish he'd have the decency to tell me and break things off. But that's not the point. Logan, everything you just said---that's the way I've felt for the last ten years. I never _stopped_ loving you, even after you broke my heart and left P.C.A. And I still love you, so much. And don't even get me started on wanting to show you how I feel. To be quite frank..." she was babbling, talking rapid-speed, her heart thudding in her ears. "I've wanted to kiss you since the moment I saw you this evening." Okay, what she wanted was a hell of a lot more than kissing, but she really didn't want to go completely overboard here. And while as a teenager, she could have blamed that desire on errant hormones, she couldn't now. She craved closeness with him, both physical and emotional. She wanted to erase the last ten years and start again. With him.

"Well, then," he gave a small smile and leaned in to brush his lips against hers. Right before they made contact, a huge roar was heard from inside the gym, and a loud feminine scream. They broke apart at the sound and looked at each other in confusion.

"What the hell is that?" Logan asked. She shrugged and followed him inside, too curious about what was going on to be very dissapointed that their kiss was interrupted.

What was inside was nothing short of pandemonium. A crowd had gathered around two men, one of them screaming obscenities and accusations, while the other tried to get his bearings. Quinn quickly cut through the crowd behind Logan, and gasped at what she saw. Chase, the most self-controlled person she had ever seen, had cornered James, and looked ready to kill.


	17. Chase's POV 4

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: Chase knows about James and is out for blood. Place your bets now---will James make it out alive?**

Chase saw red as he turned quickly away from her and stalked towards the school. The blood was pounding painfully in his ears, so loud that his breath was now coming in time to his adrenaline-laced heartbeat. There was a rusty metallic taste in his mouth and his hands itched for James's throat. Or any body part really; anything that he could use to cause pain.

He didn't even notice the students that dove to get out of his way, or the fact that Zoey was calling his name frantically thirty yards away. He had taken on tunnel vision, and the only thing he could see was the door to that gymnasium. He wrenched it open with more power than he thought he possessed and scanned the room for him.

James was standing across the room with a group of people Chase didn't recognize, his arm around a former classmate and his wedding band mysteriously missing from the hand that dangled from her shoulder. The blatant betrayal of fidelity was like adding gasoline to a fire, and Chase exploded.

"Garret, you're a dead man," he called, the words coming out as a feral growl before he pounced.

Chase made it across the room in four quick strides before taking the other man by the shirt collar and slamming him unceremoniously against the cement wall of the gym. James didn't even have time to utter an oath before Chase hauled him forward a few feet and smashed him once again into the wall, this time his skull making a loud _crack_ as it made contact with concrete.

"You _bastard_," was all Chase could get out through the number of obscenities going through his mind. "How dare you?"

"How dare I what?" James looked genuinely confused. "What the hell have I ever done to you?"

"It's not about what you've done to me," Chase said through gritted teeth. "It's about what you've done to _her._" He nodded his head behind him, where he had heard Zoey calling his name a few moments ago, begging him to stop. And while he would do anything for her, this was something he had to do. _Needed_ to do. Chase abruptly let go of James' shirt collar and instead punched him squarely in the jaw. James stumbled sideways a few steps, but managed to maintain his balance.

"What has she told you?" James asked incredulously, clutching his mouth and nursing his now split lip. "It's all lies, I assure you."

"_Bastard,_" Chase repeated, aiming another blow towards the man in front of him. He wanted to cause as much pain as possible, if only to wipe that smug look off James' face. This one James ducked, but let out a yelp as Chase grabbed his collar again and shoved him to the floor. "Tell me, does it make you feel big, hitting her? Make you feel like more of a man?"

"Chase!" Zoey put a hand on his arm and tried to pull him away. "Please, stop." At the sound of her voice, James turned his gaze from Chase to her, his face screwing up in an expression of such contempt that it would put a monster mask to shame.

"_You!" _he spat. "You told. I can't believe you—" He grabbed her arm roughly, and at that precise moment, Chase felt his control snap like an overstretched rubber band. Sweeping Zoey behind him protectively, his hand shot out and wrapped itself around James' neck, squeezing with increasing pressure. Chase briefly wondered if he should be concerned about the pleasure he felt as the bastard's face turned a bright red and his lips turned a shocking shade of white.

"Chase!" Zoey was tugging at him again, her voice a sobbing shriek as she looked between him and her husband. "Chase, please stop! You're killing him!" _Good, that's very good,_ some recess of his mind thought, and Chase could not remember hating anyone more in his life than the man in front of him.

The small tugging at his shirt was replaced with large hands on his shoulders, two sets pulling him away from the nearly-unconscious James and behind a barrier of strong arms. Michael and Logan looked at him as though he'd lost his mind, as Michael kept a firm grip on his right arm and Logan on his left, with a leg hooked around his knees for good measure.

"Chase, what the hell?" Michael shouted in his ear. The rage had not dissipated, however, and Chase struggled against his captors.

"Hurt….Zoey…._bastard…_" Chase ground out, fighting strongly to get away. James glared strongly at him, before moving to lay a hand on Zoey's shoulder. She flinched and looked at Chase helplessly.

"Wait, you hurt Zoey?" Logan asked, an edge of worry in his voice. There was no way Chase would be held if that were the case. And no way James would make it out of that room still walking, let alone alive. Even after ten years, everyone in the room knew there was no one Chase loved more than Zoey, one of the man reasons only Michael and Logan were able to intervene. Chase saw Michael and Logan look at each other with dawning understanding before looking back at James.

"James, I would leave if I were you," Logan advised. "Like, _now."_

"We can't hold him forever," Michael added. "And the instant we let him go, he's not going to stop until you're dead." Chase gave a spirited jolt, accentuating his friend's statement.

"Fine," James dusted off his shirt and turned his gaze to Zoey. "We're leaving. Let's go."

"_No!"_ Chase growled, making even James look at him with fear. "She stays."

"She's _my_ wife, Matthews."

"I don't give a damn. She _stays."_

"She stays, James," Michael injected gravely. "Or we let him go."

"Fine," he spat. "She's your problem now." He turned and stalked towards the exit, grabbing his coat roughly from were he'd thrown it over the back of a chair and slamming the gym door behind him.

The silence after he was gone was deafening. The entire room was in a state of shock, and it took a solid minute before any sort of chatter resumed. Chase hung his head wearily and relaxed.

"Okay, guys, let me go," he said. "Slowly." He needed to calm down. He still felt like running out into the parking lot and beating what was left of James into the pavement. His heart was still hammering wildly and the adrenaline that had coursed through his blood had left so quickly it gave him a headache.

"It's okay, Chase, he's gone." Michael said in a soothing voice, extracting his arm from the death grip he'd had it in a moment before. Logan did the same, patting him on the shoulder like a stray dog and looking at him warily.

When Chase thought he was capable of taking one step forward and not rushing out the door to commit murder, he chanced a look at Zoey, who hadn't moved from her spot she'd been in since he'd been ripped away. Chase internally cursed himself. No matter how good it had felt to pound his fists into her sorry excuse for a husband, he knew she was probably terrified of him now. All she'd known for the past ten years was violence and pain. What if she thought he would do to her what he had just done to James?

"Zoey?" he ventured softly. She looked up at him, and it made his heart swell to see that her eyes weren't filled with fear, but with relief. He made his way across the space between them in incredible time and wrapped his arms around her, feeling grateful when she hugged him back. They stood there for what felt like hours, feeling triumph, sadness, and relief with joint emotions, lost in their own little bubble of emotion. Finally, he pulled away.

"Let's get out of here," he said, grasping her hand firmly in his making his way towards the door. She followed willingly enough, but he felt a large ache that it was without the usual curiosity that he had come to know was a part of her. She did not ask where they were going, or why he had nearly killed James.

It was still raining when they got outside, and it appeared to have worsened, soaking them both in an instant. They ran to his car, nearly blind from the water running into their eyes, before hastily getting into it and slamming the doors shut against the weather. He stuck the key in the ignition and turned the heat on full blast, as they had both started to shiver. He flicked on the radio for background noise before taking a deep breath and looking at her. She gazed back at him, and he couldn't help but think that she was still beautiful, despite all of the hardship she'd faced.

"Where are we going?" she asked, and Chase had to smile. There was the Zoey he knew. Always asking questions.

"Back to my hotel," he said, running the back of his hand up her arm. "I need to know you're safe tonight." _And every night,_ his mind added, but he didn't dare say it aloud. She nodded and bit her lip. He put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking lot of P.C.A., now with a few more memories to add to his mental scrapbook of his alma mater.

Getting to his hotel, which was only a few miles away, was a harrowing experience. The weather bulletin was the only thing that ran on the radio, warning citizens to stay off the streets as much as possible. Chase could see why. The rain was falling now in sheets, making it hard to see even a few inches out the windshield, and he watched in fear as cars in front of him skidded out onto the shoulder of the highway. The sky was almost pitch black, thunder rolled so loud that he thought he would go deaf, and the lightening was blinding. The storm wasn't letting up one bit.

After a vexing half hour, he managed to pull up in front of the hotel, which now looked abandoned. Chase figured it probably would be, by this point. It was a tourist trap, and tourists that came to this part of California demanded sun and surf, not black clouds and rain. He was grateful that his room was on the ground floor.

"Alright, let's see how soaked we can get in twenty feet," he glanced over at Zoey, who looked calm despite the scary car ride and she gave him a small smile.

"How would we tell?" she asked, gesturing to their clothes that had yet to dry from their run to the car at the school.

"Good point," his grin was immense as he saw bits and pieces of the old Zoey resurface for snatches of time. He held out his hand. "Care to test it?"

"Okay," she nodded and took his hand. The two dashed as quickly as they could from the car to room 140, though still managed to look like drowned rats when Chase finally forced his key in the lock and they tumbled inside the room.

"Whew," he said, closing the door tightly behind him and trying the light switch. As he thought, the power had gone out with the storm. "Well, this sucks."

"Must be the storm," Zoey offered, smiling as Chase helped her strip off her soaked sweatshirt and shivering.

"Must be," he agreed. He gave a pitiful glance outside at the storm, and then towards the bathroom. He returned his gaze to her and her shivering form. "How about a warm bath?"

"I thought you weren't supposed to take showers when there was a thunderstorm out?"

"Yes, that's true. But I didn't say anything about a shower, did I?" he smiled warmly, teasing her. "I'm sure if you just filled the tub up, you wouldn't get shocked."

"What about when you turned the water on?" Zoey challenged.

"Hmmm….you're right. In that case, _I_ will draw the bath. You stay here," he moved her gently to sit on the double bed in the middle of the room before going into the bathroom to draw the bath. Thankfully, he didn't get electrocuted as he yanked the knob out to let the water run, or as he stuck his hand under the stream of water to check the temperature.

A few minutes later, the bath was ready, and Zoey safely ensconced in it. Chase smiled as she thanked him and set about getting light into the room. He scoured the room, and, finding nothing, went down to the supply closet down the hall (again, soaking himself) and grabbed an arm-load of emergency candles. He dug a lighter out from the bottom of his duffel bag and watched in delight as the room became more and more illuminated with each candle he lit and placed around the room. When he was finished, he noted with some romantic fancy that the room looked very seductive at this point, but he quickly shoved it out of his mind. _Seriously. How could you even think of that at a time like this?_

Devoid of things to do, he sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window at the storm. Despite raging on for three hours or so, it was still in fine form, lashing rain violently against the window and bending palm trees to the ground. He was sure that if they had been on the east coast, this would be classified as a tropical storm, if not a hurricane. As he watched a telephone pole sway dangerously in the wind, he realized that they may be stuck in this room for a few days. He was so glad he'd decided to stop at a grocery store the day before, intent on eating something other than what passed for room service and restaurant food around the vicinity. But that wasn't what worried him. A few days alone with Zoey. He would go insane. He was going insane right now, the thought of her in the bathroom a few feet from him.

He was brought out of his reverie as he heard the _snick_ of the bathroom door closing. He smiled; she looked so much more relaxed now than she had at the reunion. She smiled back and sat down next to him on the bed, crossing her legs beneath her. Chase had a sudden flashback from P.C.A.; how many nights had they hung out in the lounge, sitting just like this on the couch and talking about nothing?

"Feel better?" he asked.

"Much."

"So, do you always carry a change of clothing with you?" he gestured to the fresh pair of jeans and the tank top she'd put on. She glanced down at herself and then back at him.

"James has no sense of direction," she explained. "We get lost, and he doesn't like to stop for directions. After being stranded in the middle of nowhere overnight a few times, I decided that bringing a change of clothes with me was in my favor."

"Makes sense," he nodded. The candlelight flickered around the room, illuminating what James had done to her. His eyes ran over the bruises again, and he felt an ache in his chest so sharp he rubbed the area as if to ease it. She followed his gaze and put her hands up to cover herself. He suddenly felt guilty for bringing the subject up again, and shook his head with a sad smile.

"Hey, you want to play 'Would You Rather'?" he asked. He saw her eyes brighten and she gave a small laugh.

"I haven't played that in years," she said. "Alright. You go first."

"Okay. Would you rather….eat escargot or wear a bunny suit for ten years?"

"Definitely the snails. Would you rather…paint yourself completely in P.C.A. school colors or drive a clown car for the rest of your life?"

"P.C.A school colors. I wouldn't be able to navigate a clown car through rush hour traffic."

They played for the next couple of hours, the cares of the world outside the hotel room long gone. The storm continued to rage on, every now and again filling the entire room with light and shaking the entire building with thunder. The rain lashed mercilessly against the window, though for all the couple in the hotel room cared, the world could have been ending. Chase hadn't felt so relaxed and at ease since high school, and was once again struck by the feeling of the missing puzzle piece of his heart slide firmly into place. He smiled as the worried expression around her face dissipated and she stopped glancing towards the door every five seconds, as if expecting her husband to barge in and drag her away. She had only flinched a little when he chanced to place a hand on her knee, and with every passing second, was becoming more of the young Zoey he knew and fell in love with fifteen years before.

"Oh, wow, is that really the time?" Zoey asked suddenly as she looked over at the cheap alarm clock on the bedside table. The hands indicated that it was well past two in the morning, meaning they'd been talking and laughing for at least six hours. _Time flies,_ he mused. He said nothing, content with just looking at her, watching her come back to life. He was aware, having minored in psychology in college, that she may never truly recover from the damage James had done to her, but at this point, he'd take anything. He'd _do_ anything, if only he would never have to see that truly terrified look in her eye ever again. "What?"

"What, what?" he teased, enjoying the slight flush that colored her cheeks.

"Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Staring at you like what?"

"Like—I don't know," she shrugged. She looked away, concentrating intensely on a bruise on her upper arm. He bit his tongue, knowing he was making her just a little uncomfortable. Ten years had made him a little bolder, but it hadn't made him stupid. He followed her gaze and frowned.

"Does that hurt?" he asked. When she nodded slightly, he added, "I think I have some salve in my bag. My mom ran across it on one of those home shopping networks. She told me it was a good investment, considering how clumsy I am." He moved off the bed and reached for his messily packed duffel bag. He rummaged around shirts and socks before grasping his prize and ripping it from the bag with a triumphant yell.

"Here it is," he smiled at her and waved the little jar of cream. "It works wonders, I promise. Come here." He motioned her closer and unscrewed the cap. He was positive she could do this herself, but he couldn't give up the opportunity to touch her, just a little. Not enough to shock her, but he'd dreamed of this moment (okay, not _exactly_ this way) for the last ten years.

Too bad he didn't count on _him_ being the one to get shocked and tossed. He worked the salve between his fingers to warm it a little before applying it to the bruise on her upper arm, very carefully working it into the soft skin there. She watched him intently as he worked, and he couldn't resist drawing in closer to her. He moved to another on her shoulder, not even realizing how close he'd gotten until he felt her breath tickle his ear. It sent shivers down his spine, and he had to stop to collect himself before continuing to one on her collarbone, and one on her other shoulder. Ten years of denied desire had him wanting to push her down into the pillows and kiss her until they both couldn't breath. And after that….But the rational part of his brain yanked the leash on the desire to choke it back; now was neither the time nor the place.

He pulled back a moment to look at her, and nearly groaned. Her face was flushed from the close contact, her breath was shaky, and her brown eyes unusually dark. The choke hold on his desire broke a little as he tried to find his voice.

"Turn around," he said, his voice raspy and not a little breathless. Something flashed in her eyes, but she complied, moving slowly and deliberately to face the wall. He kneeled behind her, ready again with the salve. Her skin was soft as butter and fragrant from the soap she'd used during her bath. His fingers glided over it easily, and he felt his resolve breaking bit by bit, especially as she gave a feminine sigh and leaned into his touch. He soon forgot the salve and concentrated instead on running his hands over the smooth skin of her back and shoulders, skimming his thumb just under the tank top she wore and back up to the nape of her neck in rhythmic circles. She'd tossed her hair up into a messy ponytail, and he couldn't help himself. He leaned forward and placed a soft, gentle kiss to the nape of her neck. She tensed immediately, before shivering at the contact. Encouraged, he trailed light kisses over her right shoulder, amazed to find that she tasted as good as she smelled.

"Chase—" she started, though whether it was to stop him or tell him to continue, he didn't know.

"Kisses make everything better," he murmured, wrapping his arms around her waist and dragging her into his lap. Her weight was familiar (though admittedly several pounds lighter), and the hold on his desire finally broke. His control was gone, and it was only out of propriety that he didn't turn her around and play out some of those fantasies he'd been concocting for a decade. She said nothing, instead entwining one of his hands with hers and leaning more fully into his embrace.

"You know earlier?" he breathed into her ear, moving his trail of kisses from her neck to her temple. "When you asked why I was staring at you the way I was?"

"Mmmm…" was the only response he got. He chuckled and continued, taking his free hand and running the back of it lightly up her arm, blazing a trail of goosebumps as he went. _What the hell are you doing? _His mind was screaming at him to stop this; it wasn't right, it wasn't appropriate, and she may very well hate him in the morning. And he would hate himself, as well, for taking advantage. But as she moved closer to him, and to his touch, his mind abruptly shut off.

"I was staring at you like…" he debated for a moment whether to tell her the truth or make up something on the spot; he chose the former and dropped his voice to a breathy whisper. "Like a man who wants a woman. Like a man who is desperately, madly in love with a woman, and can no longer conceal it." He heard her breath catch, and she swiftly turned to look at him.

"What?" it was said so softly that at first, Chase didn't know whether she'd said it at all. He gave a crooked half smile and moved to cup her cheek. He was afraid he'd scared her with his confession, but was relieved to find curiosity instead of terror. Curiosity and….something he couldn't quite place. Was it desire of her own?

"Did you really think that just because we broke up, I'd stop loving you?" he asked. "I've loved you since the moment I saw you. It's not something I could throw aside casually." He punctuated each sentence with a gentle kiss to her cheek, to her forehead, to her chin, before continuing. "I tried, though. I tried so hard. I got married, moved into the perfect suburban house, got a job I love. But it didn't work. I was still in love with you, at the end of the day. Seeing you here with James, and then to find out he was hurting you—it tore my heart to pieces. If there was one thing that I was holding onto during these last ten years, it was that you were happy and loved. I can't believe _anyone_ would treat you the way he did."

"I don't want to talk about James," she said suddenly, apparently finding her voice. She wrapped a slender hand around the back of his neck and drew him in until her forehead rested against his. "He's not important right now."

"You're right," he agreed. "And I know that this instant isn't exactly the right time for this," he gestured to their current position, "but I've wanted you every day for the last fifteen years. I've wanted you in my life, in my bed, in my arms, in every aspect of my life for fifteen years. I guess tonight it all came to a head." He swallowed a moan as she licked her lips and looked seriously at him.

"You have no idea what those words do to me," she whispered, making his heart leap around painfully in his chest. "God, Chase, you're not the only one. I've wanted and needed you for the past ten years more than I ever thought I could with anyone. Tonight only made me realize how much." She leaned down and placed a sensual kiss on his neck.

"Zoey—" his mind was screaming at him again that this wasn't the place or the time, but he was in the process of wrestling it into a box with a large padlock. Whatever control he'd gained during their serious conversation was lost again as she placed another kiss on his collarbone.

"I'm sick of waiting," she hummed. "I want to erase the past ten years. I want to forget James ever entered the picture. I want _you._" He never knew those three words could sound so sensual. His mind gave up trying to tell him what to do as he dragged her up and captured her lips in a drugging kiss. Gently leaning her back against the pillows, he slowly went about making up for ten years of lost time.

**A/N: Wow, I think I actually have to up the rating on this. It's the first time I've ever had to up a rating. I have been reading far too much Nora Roberts this summer…it's started to seep into my fanfiction! I had tons of fun writing this chapter, I hope you guys like it! Remember that reviewing is highly appreciated!**


	18. Logan's POV 4

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: Okay, this is an interesting chapter. Not just for the content, but how it came to be written. I had this chapter almost all the way written way back in December, after grappling for months with what Logan and Quinn should do. Right after I get it ironed out, my laptop eats the file. Upset, I try to write down as much of it as I remember, only to have my entire laptop commit suicide. Now, on a new laptop, I've finally gotten this chapter hammered out. Hope you like it!**

The _slam!_ of the gym door reverberated around the silent room as James wiped his bloody nose on the back of his hand and stormed away with what was left of his pride. Which, Logan smirked to himself, wasn't much. Chase had made his point emphatically. The crowd twittered excitedly amongst itself, obviously thrilled to have something so thrilling happen at a lack-luster evening party. The thunder clapped outside and the wind howled, and for a long while, they were the only sounds in the room.

"Wow," Michael said after a few moments, both he and Logan watching as Chase tugged Zoey into his arms for a soulful embrace before heading out into the storm. "That was….intense."

"Yeah," Logan agreed. Intense was a good word for it. He had only seen Chase get so emotionally charged once before, back at P.C.A., where he had unfortunately been the target of such rage. He had a scar on his left shoulder blade to prove it. Chase was usually a lover, not a fighter, but Logan knew that when it came to Zoey, all bets were off. It had inspired him to violence ten years ago, and it did the same today. There was nothing he wouldn't do for her. All in all, Logan had never seen a man so in love with a woman as Chase was with Zoey. Except maybe he and Quinn. _Quinn._

Logan spun around to find the woman in question, only to see the hem of her dress nearly get caught in the door as she escaped to the storm outside. He let out a curse and dashed out after her, oblivious to Michael's questioning look.

The storm outside was quite possibly the worst weather Logan had ever seen. He was soaked to the skin in an instant, and could barely see a foot in front of him for all of the driving rain obscuring his vision. The wind whipped the trees around dangerously, and the vicious flapping of the purple and aqua P.C.A. flagpole could be heard in the distance, almost screaming for someone to come take it down before it was lost to the storm. Logan brushed his soaked hair out of his eyes and spat out a mouthful of rainwater, scanning the parking lot for Quinn. He finally spotted her heading towards the main road—in high heels and her thin party dress? Was she insane? She was asking to be hit by a car, or catch pneumonia, or be carried away herself with how small she was.

"Quinn!" he shouted, trying to catch her attention. His voice was caught by the wind and gone before it even had a chance to make it anywhere. Quinn kept walking diligently towards the main road, swaying every now and again from trying to maneuver through rain and wind in three-inch stilettos. Logan made to run after her, before a better idea occurred to him. Extracting his keys from his sodden pants pocket, he dashed instead towards his car, hoping that it didn't choose this time to have engine failure or something. Thankfully, it revved up immediately after he put the key in the ignition, and he jammed it into reverse. He nearly took out a compact car that had seen better days before taking a hairpin turn towards the main entrance of the school.

He had to give her credit; the girl could certainly move. In the time it had taken him to catch up to her, she was off campus and walking down the highway. She seemed not to notice him as he slowed down beside her and rolled down his window.

"Quinn, have you lost your mind?" Logan demanded, pinning her with a glare when she looked up. "If the winds pick up any more, this could be classified as a hurricane."

"Go away, Logan," was the response. It was short and clipped; Logan knew he was skating on thin ice. But at the moment, he was a little too angry to give a damn. Excuse him for caring if the woman he was madly in love with came to harm. She kept walking, stopping momentarily to quickly remove her shoes (unfortunately before Logan could get out of the car and throw her in) before picking up her pace.

"Quinn, get in the car."

"Leave me alone."

"How do you expect to get anywhere?"

"I'll call a cab."

"Everything's probably shut down thanks to this storm. There's no way a cab is going to risk coming out here."

"I'll handle it, Logan."

"Don't do this."

"Just go away."

"Quinn—"

"Logan, _please_," it was the pleading note in her voice that made him stop short, and when she turned to look at him, the expression on her face made him feel about an inch tall and like the worst man on the planet. Her face was red and swollen from crying, and her breath came in hitching little sobs that he could hear even over the wind and rain. He looked into her eyes, and saw the conflict that rested there. Of course she wanted him to leave her alone. She was married, after all. She had a husband and responsibilities and a life. A life that had no room for him, he saw now. What had he been expecting? That he would show up, profess his undying love for her, and they would run away together? No, his Quinn wouldn't do that. She had made a commitment to another man, and she could no more break that than she could stop breathing. His Quinn never did anything half-way. It was all or nothing. He knew her family looked down on divorce, and that she didn't want to risk alienating them by leaving her cheating husband. His heart sunk as they stood staring at each other on the side of the road. How could he have been so naive? He put the car into park and leaned back against the driver's seat, scrubbing his face with his hands. She looked at him for a moment, before turning to continue her trip down the road.

"Quinn, wait," Logan opened up the door and stepped out. He grabbed her arm before she could get too far away and turned her so she was facing him. "Please don't do this. Don't leave us like this."

"I-I can't do this," she said, a new wave of tears welling up in her eyes.

"I know," he pulled her into his embrace, hugging her as tight as he could while she sobbed into his chest. "I know. I'm sorry. This was not my intention when I came here today." He rested his chin on top of her head and murmured apologies into her hair. He trailed a comforting hand across her back, creating nonsensical patterns with his fingertips. Every shake of her frame tore him apart inside, and he felt a few tears of his own trail down his face as she let out all the emotion she'd held hidden for a decade.

When her sobs had subsided and had pulled away from his embrace, he looked back towards the car.

"Come on. I'll drive you back to your hotel," he said gently. "It's easier than calling a cab, and it won't cost you an arm and a leg." She nodded silently and allowed herself to be led to the passenger's side and tucked into the seat. As he moved around to the driver's side, he noticed that she was shivering from the cold temperature and cranked up the heat when he settled himself inside. She said nothing as he put the car into drive, and he sighed before cruising down the road towards the nearest motel.

"Stop the car," she said after a few minutes of silence. The words seemed much louder than they were and echoed around the car, startling Logan as he turned to look at her.

"What?" his foot automatically left the gas and headed for the brake, even as his mind was wondering at her request.

"Pull over."

"Alright," he maneuvered the car to the side of the road, narrowly avoiding a water-filled ditch that was rapidly becoming a small lake. He put the car in park and turned to look at her quizzically, poised to ask why they had stopped.

Before he could say anything, he found himself pinned to the scratchy upholstery of the driver's seat as Quinn deftly crawled over the console separating them and kissed him with enough heat to melt steel. Logan's arms flailed for purchase for a moment, shocked by this new turn of events, before settling at the waistband of her jeans. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks that at least his hands knew what to do; he wasn't sure he could remember his own name at this point. Scratch that. As she wrapped a slender hand around the collar of his shirt to tug him closer, he was quite sure he never had a name to remember in the first place. _Good Lord…_ had it always been this way? Logan felt oddly detached from his body, and it wasn't an altogether unpleasant sensation. He had to stifle a groan as he slipped his hand under her t-shirt to caress the skin at the small of her back; had it always been so soft? He couldn't remember.

The heat between them was explosive, as though the intervening ten years had only acted as a ticking time-bomb, set to go off as soon as they got close enough. It was akin to adding gasoline to an already raging brushfire, each kiss stoking the fire higher and higher. The feel of her hand on his face, holding him steadfastly exactly where she wanted him sent the flames straight into his bloodstream; he was burning from the inside out. He couldn't help but give a smug little smile as she gave a small noise of protest as he tore away from their kiss to trail his lips down the side of her jaw and down the column of her neck. A nip at her collarbone elicited a surprised gasp, another at the juncture of her shoulder. Now _that_ was a sound he wouldn't mind hearing every day for the rest of his life. He flattened his hands over her waist to pull her impossibly closer. She arched into him as he flitted his fingers along her spin under the soft fabric of her t-shirt, and he felt a primal surge of satisfaction when she shivered at the contact. She was coming apart in his arms, and he was loving every second of it. He felt his control snap as she breathed his name on a sigh.

He almost burst into tears as she moved off his lap, only to see her climb gracefully into the spacious backseat and beckon him with a raised eyebrow. He eagerly complied, and was surprised he didn't impale himself on something with his haste. She grabbed handfuls of his shirt as soon as he was within arm's reach, moving her hand to the back of his neck and pulling him down for another bone-melting kiss. He felt her fingers slowly loosen the buttons of his dress-shirt as she distracted him with kisses. When she was done, she lazily moved her hands up to his neck and pushed the offending garment off his shoulders. He rolled his shoulders to help remove his shirt, only to find that removing it was not her goal. He found his arms trapped behind him as she shoved it down only a few inches, a seductive smile playing on her lips. She was in control now, and there wasn't anything he could—or really wanted—to do about it. Logan shook his head in amazement. Where had this vixen come from? So different from the Quinn he'd known in high school. While she hadn't exactly been shy about showing affection back then, it wasn't anything like this. He was being taken advantage of. Something he was often accused of doing to the unsuspecting female population, and now the tables were turned.

She took her time reacquainting herself with him, exploring him with a curiosity only a scientist could possess. She was torturing him slowly, and his growls of frustration seemed only to spur her on. When he could take it no longer, she chuckled and helped him tug his shirt off his arms and toss it into the front seat. He grabbed her quickly around the waist and flipped their positions, pinning her to the backseat in the space of an instant. Now was the time to make her pay for her torture session. He sought to make her as crazy as she was making him; as she had always made him. God, he'd made such a mistake when he'd left her ten years ago. As he lowered his lips to her, his mind jumped to how unromantic the setting was. After all, they were necking in the backseat of his car like a couple of high-school kids. No, next time he'd make sure they were in a bed. Next time, he would relish the feeling of her waking up in his arms. For now, he would settle for branding her as his permanently, banishing any thought of her husband with every touch.

With that thought, the fog in Logan's mind lifted immediately. _Mark._ Her husband. She was still married. They couldn't continue; she would regret this in the morning. She would hate him. Hell, he would hate himself. Every nerve ending in his body protested as he pulled away. He held his hands up in silent defeat, scooting as far away from her on the small seat as possible. She sat up and looked at him in confusion. He had to bite his lip hard to keep from crawling over to her and returning to their previous activities; the flush of her cheeks, her lips swollen from his kisses, and her eyes dark with desire were temptations he could barely resist.

"Logan?"

"We can't do this. I'm sorry. We can't," he repeated it over and over again, more to chastise himself than her. He scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to calm the blood racing through his veins and the desire he could still feel emanating from him.

"What?" there was an edge of hurt in her voice, and it killed him that he had put it there.

"We'll hate each other in the morning," he tried to explain, but the hurt still showed. He grabbed one of her hands that was wringing the hem of her t-shirt and placed it over his heart. "It's not because I don't want to. I've waited ten years for this moment and this is one of the hardest things I've ever done." He rubbed his thumb over the wedding band that rested on her ring finger and continued. "You would regret this later if we continued. I know you would."

"And I don't get a say in this?" she was bordering on tears now, and she yanked her hand away, instead cradling it to her. "How do you know I'd regret it? You haven't been around for the past ten years to know me at all. Maybe I _need_ this. Maybe I just need one damn night to feel loved and wanted. I have to go back to a man that goes to other women when he wants sex, rather than his wife. Maybe I need to feel wanted for once."

"You said it yourself that we can't do this. You're married, Quinn. That won't change if we do this. I know how you feel about cheating; I don't want you to regret us being together. I don't ever want to be a regret for you. I don't want you to hate me in the morning."

"No matter what happened, I wouldn't hate you. I've never truly hated you, Logan. Not even when you left for New York," she took a steadying breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them, her face took on a terribly sad expression. "But you're right. We can't do this. Damn it, you're right." She retrieved his shirt from the front seat and handed it to him. The car was silent as he slipped the garment over his arms and buttoned it. He noticed a trace of her perfume clung to the fabric and he felt tears sting his eyes.

He crawled to the front seat first, settling into the driver's seat as she did the same in the passenger's side. His fingers felt numb as he moved to turn the engine back on, wondering how he couldn't remember that he'd turned it off. The rest of the drive to her hotel was silent; she only broke it to provide directions. The atmosphere in the car became colder, more sterile. Logan didn't like. Then again, he didn't have much of a choice.

He pulled up outside the hotel and moved to her side of the car to open her door. She nodded slightly, but wouldn't look at him. She moved past him in the direction of her room, but Logan couldn't end it that way. He didn't know if he would ever see her again. He grabbed her elbow without thinking, and she turned to look at him questioningly. He floundered for a moment, trying to find something good to say, all the while getting soaked by the rain that continued to fall. In the end, he bent forward and brushed a kiss on her cheekbone. He tasted the saltiness of her tears; another punch to the gut. He pulled away reluctantly after a moment.

"Goodbye, Quinn."

"Goodbye, Logan." she ran a hand down his jaw before turning and hurrying into number 163 to get out of the rain. He waited until she was all the way inside, and as the door closed behind her, he felt his heart shatter.

**A/N: Okay, even I didn't know exactly how that car scene was going to go. That changed a lot from my first writing. And that has got to be one of the sexiest things I've ever written. Woah. I should listen to 80's music and type at 5 a.m. more often. Quinn and Logan have always been the confounding couple in this story; I'm not sure how I want them to go. Anyway, reviews are definitely welcome. Tell me what you think!**


	19. Zoey's POV 5

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: Alright, it's taken a month, but now that finals are over, I've finally had time to write the next chapter of **_**Lost and Found.**_** Now, back to Chase and Zoey….**

The rain made a pretty tinkling lullaby as it beat gently against the window, Zoey mused as she sat curled into the overstuffed monstrosity that passed for an armchair. Glancing at the clock, she saw that she'd been up for over an hour now, having slipped from Chase's comforting embrace after a loud clap of thunder had roused her from her dreamless sleep. Getting out of bed had been difficult; even in his sleep Chase was reluctant to let her go, his arm tightening around her waist as she tried to climb out from under the covers. Gingerly, she had managed it, shivering at the cold that encompassed her as soon as she removed the blankets. Fumbling, she found his flannel shirt, long discarded over the bedside lamp, and tugged it on, glad for the small warmth it provided. The shirt was more like a nightgown on her small frame, and she curled her knees underneath the flannel as she sat in the chair.

Turning her attention away from the storm and to the man in the bed, she gave a soft smile. Chase was still sound asleep on his back, one arm thrown above his head and the other resting across his abdomen. He looked relaxed, and much younger than his twenty-eight years. The lines of stress she had seen around his face when they had talked earlier had vanished, and she saw the corners of his mouth turn up slightly in his sleep. She had been delighted earlier to find that his wiry frame he'd hated as a teenager had given way to strong, lean muscle. She had never felt as loved as she had tonight; Chase had seen to that, as he always had. His kiss had smoothed over her like a healing balm and made the past decade feel like a bad dream. When she had awoken, she had expected to feel guilt or shame at having cheated on her husband, but there had been none of that. She had felt sated and content. It was a good feeling. In the same token, she felt sick to her stomach. How was she supposed to leave him? She had planned to sneak out before dawn, but every fiber of her being now protested the plan. Chase would undoubtedly object to her returning to James, and she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to resist staying like this forever. It wasn't that she was afraid of a repeat of her Marriage from Hell; she wasn't one of those women who were now suddenly fearful of men because of the violence her husband had inflicted on her. She was, however, terrified of what James would do once he was done licking his wounds. He would be back, and with friends. She winced as she recalled some of his friends that would frequent their house; smooth, greasy chauvinists who believed that a woman's place was in the kitchen and approved of James' way of "keeping her in line". She often had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from whipping around and letting into one of them for demanding she refill his glass or for pinching her backside. Of course, he had other friends who weren't like this, but the formality of having to watch where he put a bruise on his wife for days before inviting them over was too much work for him, and so he often visited them in restaurants or at their homes. James saw to it that she had no friends of her own. At best, a life with Chase meant a life on the run from her sociopathic husband. Zoey didn't want to think about worst case scenarios. It wouldn't be fair to him, and she was sure he would come to resent her in time for it. Chase was the most understanding person she knew, but a person could only take so much.

"Hey, Zo?" Chase's voice pulled her from her thoughts; she hadn't noticed that she'd been staring at a corner of the room for quite some time now.

"Mmm?"

"What happened to the baby?" his voice didn't sound groggy or sleepy, so she guessed he'd been awake for awhile now. He flipped over onto his side and snaked an arm under his pillow.

"Baby?"

"Earlier, when we were talking with everyone," he explained, scooting up a little bit on the pillows and smiling slightly when he realized she had stolen his shirt. "Lisa said something about you having a baby, but James cut you off before you could say anything."

"Oh, that."

"Yeah, that."

"It's not important anymore," she turned away from him and began to play with the button on the cuff of the shirt. It wasn't something she wanted to think about; the memories were still too fresh and still too painful. "It was a long time ago." Five years, three weeks, and four days, to be exact.

"Of course it's important," Chase shook his head in disbelief. "What happened?" He nailed her with a steady gaze that used to get her to spill her secrets when they were in high school, and she could feel her resolve slipping.

"James… killed our baby," she finally ground out, steadily staring at the pillow next to him. If she had to look him in the eye, she'd never get through it. There was a lump in her throat and the nausea she'd been feeling a few minutes ago increased threefold; she felt like it had been scrubbed out with ammonia and filled with acid as it churned. She had wanted to say something different, that she had miscarried, or the baby had passed away. But there was no denying it, and she might as well tell the truth. Chase would get it out of her anyway. It was simpler just to admit to him up front that James had been the cause of the child's death. She took a shuddering breath and continued. To his credit, Chase had yet to react to her statement, and more seemed to be waiting for her to continue. She expected him to gasp at the very least, and she suspected he was horrified on the inside, but his silence was exactly the thing she needed to tell the next part of the story. "James was very specific when we got married. He didn't want children. He told me that it would be hard enough to take care of ourselves much less a child, and that children were more trouble than they were worth. I tried to convince him otherwise, and he eventually decided that one child wouldn't be too much hassle. I always wondered if he agreed just to get me to shut up about it." Secretly, Zoey had been heartbroken to find out that her husband didn't want children; she loved kids. Ever since she was a little girl, she had dreamed of raising at least four or five children with the man of her dreams. In retrospect, she guessed that since she didn't get the man of her dreams, she wasn't entitled to the rest of the equation, either.

"We tried for awhile, but nothing happened. I think James was secretly pleased; he always had a relieved looked on his face when the pregnancy test came up negative. About four years into our marriage, it finally happened. I took the test at home and ended up going to my doctor just to make sure. I called James from the hospital. I was ecstatic. He was less enthusiastic, but he sounded happy. I thought the baby would mean a turn in our marriage. The hitting would end; we'd be a happy family. I thought the baby would make him change."

"And it didn't." A statement, not a question.

"No, it did. At first, anyway. James was the perfect nervous expectant father. He went baby shopping with me, he looked at baby names online, went to all the ultrasound appointments. He even turned his home office into a nursery; he spent all weekend painting the walls blue." She gave a short chuckle and looked down at her knees. "That was the only problem we had for six months. James was adamant about the baby being a boy. I didn't care either way, as long as the baby was healthy, but James wanted a boy. I teased him one time, and asked him what he would do if the baby turned out to be a girl, and he just said he was sure it was a boy. Father's intuition, he said. We wanted to find out the sex, but...." She paused there, hesitant to tell him the rest.

"What happened?" he probed gently.

"It wasn't an easy pregnancy. There were complications early on; I was so afraid that James would return to his old self that I wasn't sleeping or eating most of the time. The baby was unusually small and we had a few scares. One night, James came home late. I was putting things away in the nursery; his mom had just given us a bunch of new baby clothes. He kicks the door open and starts yelling at me, saying crazy things. He said that I was just trying to tie him down, that I wanted the baby so he could never get ahead in life. He said he didn't even know the baby was his, and he shouldn't be expected to be a father to another man's child. He decided to throw me out of the house and dragged me to the back door of our apartment. Right outside is a flight of stairs. When I wouldn't leave, he pushed me down the stairs. I woke up in the hospital with a concussion and a fractured ankle. A neighbor had called 911; James was nowhere to be found. When I asked about the baby, the doctor told me he was having a hard time finding out if the baby was okay. They brought in an ultrasound machine and couldn't find a heartbeat." She had abridged the story a great deal. In reality, it was one of the worst nights of her life, and often replayed itself in her nightmares.

_ Zoey stood up and stretched, the muscles in her back protesting loudly at having been stooped over a laundry basket and then a dresser for the last hour and a half. James' mother had been over this morning, simply glowing at the idea of having a grandchild to love, and had brought over bags and bags of baby clothes she had bought. To Zoey's relief, Mrs. Garrett did not share her son's obsession with the baby being a boy, and had brought over clothes printed in bland, neutral colors. She had also brought a hand-made quilt in lovely shades of yellow and white. It was simply beautiful and Zoey told her mother-in-law so. Mrs. Garrett had blushed and said it was no big deal, that she had made it from scraps she had dug up from her fabric collection. Either way, after she left, the clothes had been stripped of tags and put in the washing machine, and the quilt hung lovingly over the side of the crib James had set up the previous weekend. Zoey worried that it was too soon to furnish a nursery, being only half-way through her pregnancy, but he had insisted and she wasn't brave enough to deny him. Now, she was folding and putting away all the new clothes. Folding small shirts and socks was not nearly as fun as she had imagined; they didn't fold like adult clothes. But she had mustered through and was now trying to decide whether she should use the first drawer for undershirts and diapers, or use it for socks and diapers. _

_ She heard the front door click open and she smiled. Checking the train-themed clock on the wall, she saw that it was a couple of hours after James was supposed to get home, but that didn't matter. He could have had a meeting or paperwork or something. She heard him call her name loudly. _

_ "Back in the nursery, James!" she called back, continuing with the fold-and-put-away routine. She didn't notice the heavy thumping of his drunken swagger as he made his way from the kitchen to the nursery. She did, however, hear him kick the door in so hard it left a dent in the wall and scratched the blue paint beneath. She jumped and felt her heart leap into her throat. He looked disheveled, his tie undone almost to the point of falling off his neck, his hair was tousled as though he'd been riding a motorcycle, and his shirt was unbuttoned half-way down his chest. He looked haggard and mad as hell. She gulped. This was what she had been afraid of. A hand went almost unconsciously to the child that grew within her, determined to protect it all costs. It was too early to feel any movement, so she had no idea if he or she knew the danger they were in. _

_ "You!" he snarled, marching from the doorway and over to where she was, grasping her arm tightly and yanking her up to her feet. "You stupid, worthless, backstabbing bitch! I've given you everything. Everything! And this is how you repay me?"_

_ "What?"_

_ "Don't act innocent with me. How many have there been, huh? How many?" he shook her violently with each question, his eyes wild with rage and his breath reeked of alcohol. _

_ "I don't know what you're talking about!" she brought up a hand to try and get him to release his hold on her, only to have him grab her other arm as well. He sneered and shook her again, this time against the hard edge of the dresser. She cried out as a corner drove into the small of her back. _

_ "Tommy, Ryan, Billy, how many of my friends have you slept with?"_

_ "Your friends? Slept with? What are you talking about?"_

_ "Don't you lie to me!" he squeezed her arms painfully tight. There would be bruises in the morning. "You've been fooling around with men behind my back. Admit it. You're here all alone all day and you've been having men over. I'm not 'man' enough for you, is that it?"_

_ "James, I—" she didn't get to finish as James shoved her roughly from him, colliding painfully with the wall and then the floor. He stalked to the other side of the room before turning sharply to nail her with a gaze of hatred. _

_ "Don't even start. Do you know how embarrassing it is to go out after a hard day of work to find your friends talking about what a good lay your wife is? Do you even know how bad that makes me look? Hell, I can't even control my own wife. How do I even know the little brat is mine?"_

_ "Listen, James, I don't know where you're getting these ideas from—"_

_ "No, __**you**__listen!" James growled in a terrible voice, punctuating his statement by angrily overturning the crib. The bedding and stuffed animals she had arranges so perfectly now lay scattered over the nursery floor, helpless victims of a drunken mind. "I want it tested. I want to know for sure this kid's mine. I shouldn't be expected to pay for another man's baby because his wife couldn't keep her legs shut!" He towered over her. "Did you seriously think I wouldn't find out? What did you think would happen when I found out the kid looked nothing like me? Huh? What then? Or were you planning to leave me by then and run away with your damn lover?"_

_ "No—" she looked frantically towards the exit. It was useless, she was all the way on the other side of the room. Escape was futile. James yanked her face back to his by the chin with a rough demand that she look at him when he spoke to her. He threw her face away from him like it was the last thing he wanted to touch before standing up again. _

_ "I see your angle now. I know all about your plans, Zoey Brooks," he hadn't called her by her maiden name for years; ever since she had actually been Zoey Brooks, back in college. He wagged an accusatory finger at her. "You such a selfish bitch, you really are. It's all so clear now. Distract the man from his job by giving him a kid to take care of. You wanted to hold me back. You were always jealous of my success. You never knew your place, did you? You never could learn to be a wife. So you decided to turn me into a soft house-husband, bring me down to your level. Well, guess what, missy? It's not going to work." With that, he wrapped her hair around his hand and yanked her to her feet. He dragged her on her hands and knees to the back door of their apartment like some kind of primitive caveman, ignoring her cries of pain and protest. He threw open the door and shoved her out into the hallway. She slammed into the wall and narrowly missed hitting a neighbor's door before crumpling to the ground. _

_ "Get out of my house. I won't have my home dirtied by you anymore. Why don't you run to your lover? Tell him what a horrible husband I am. Don't worry. In time, he'll figure out the only way to deal with you is the same way I deal with you." He viciously kicked her away as she tried to crawl back into the apartment around his legs. She hoped he hadn't broken anything. One more look of disgust, and he shut the door, leaving her sobbing in the hallway of their building. _

_ She sat there for what felt like hours, shivering in the hallway. It was February, and it had been an unseasonably cold week; the landlord didn't see the point of putting heating ducts in the hallways and so she sat freezing on the dirty floor. Well, it had happened, hadn't it? In an odd way she felt relieved. At least now she wasn't waiting for the other shoe to drop. Of course, once this blew over, she'd once again be waiting for him to snap again. Oh, well. She had counted the stairs—25—six times, and was working on counting the ceiling tiles when the door suddenly re-opened. She looked up at her husband expectantly, waiting for the warm reception that usually followed one of his outbursts. Usually, there were tearful apologies while he held her tenderly in his arms, and promises that it would never happen again. She was long from believing the promises, but the rest of it was nice. Instead, she found a steely gaze and a mask devoid of emotion. _

_ "I thought I told you to leave," he said. She tried to explain that she had nowhere to go and no one to run to, but James was having none of it. He told her that if she wouldn't leave, he would make her leave before bodily picking her up and throwing her down the stairs. There was a gut-wrenching moment of free-fall before she felt her body collide with the muddy carpet-over-concrete steps. There was pain, intense, breath-stealing pain as her body contorted and twisted down each of the 25 steps. Her head was the first thing to hit the floor at the bottom of the stairs, and the meeting was not one she'd wish to repeat. Stars flashed in front of her eyes and her vision dimmed; there was an aching throb in her ankle and her entire being ached. Before she could cry for help, the stars disappeared and the darkness edged over her vision like a cloud. _

_ She came to in a hospital, aroused by the beeping of the heart monitor next to her bed. The first thing she noticed was that she was alone in the room. Well, alone besides the comatose patient in the bed next to her. James hadn't come with her. Unusual, but not unheard of. He wasn't around for all of the hospital trips he caused. In reality, she preferred it when he stayed at home. She didn't have to put up with his snide comments wrapped in compliments about how she could have avoided this, or James questioning everything the doctor did or prescribed. It felt like a vacation. A vacation with a large co-pay, but a vacation nonetheless. _

_ "Oh, good, you're awake," she heard from the doorway. A doctor dressed casually in jeans and a button-down shirt under his lab coat smiled brightly at her as he entered the room. "How do you feel?"_

_ "I feel fine." Zoey struggled to sit up a little bit more. She hated lying down on hospital beds while doctors were speaking to her. It made her feel like a damn child. _

_ "Really? No headache?" the doctor flashed a light in her eyes to see her pupils dilate. "No nausea? What about your ankle? Any pain there?"_

_ "My ankle? What's wrong with my ankle?" she looked down at it when the doctor was done with her eyes to find it wrapped in a white cast. Judging from the cast, it was a fracture, not a break. The doctor confirmed her suspicions a moment later. He asked about the pain again, but the steady drip of some clear fluid into her IV was killing any pain she might have felt. Suddenly, panic gripped her. She grabbed the doctor's arm as he made to leave the room. "Wait, what about my baby? Is my baby okay?" The doctor looked grim. _

_ "We don't know," he said honestly. "The baby wasn't moving last time we checked, but we don't know whether that's because something bad has happened, or as a result of the pain medication we were giving you. We're calling down someone from pediatrics as we speak with a fetal monitor and an ultrasound." As he finished his sentence, and intern in turquoise scrubs wheeled the equipment into the room and a friendly-looking doctor came walking in behind it. She gave Zoey a small smile and stuffed her hands in the pockets of her white lab coat as the intern set up the machine. Dr. Miller, the embroidery above the pocket read. Funny, Zoey thought. She didn't think doctors even wore lab coats anymore, and yet here were two who wore them proudly. She wondered briefly if it was just his hospital, or a world-wide thing. _

_ "Hi, I'm Dr. Miller," she introduced herself. "Let's have a look at that little baby, shall we? Now, careful, this is going to be a little cold." She spread petroleum jelly on Zoey's stomach and she was right—it was cold. Zoey sucked in a breath from the chill as the doctor spread it around with the ultrasound wand and turned on the machine. A few moments later, the blank screen of the ultrasound machine transformed into a gray-black static, and Dr. Miller flashed her a smile as she pointed out the baby on the screen. Suddenly, the smile disappeared from her face, replaced by a confused frown. The wand moved frantically over Zoey's stomach, and the static on the screen fluctuated wildly. The doctor suddenly stopped and flicked a switch on the machine. The familiar whooshing sound of fluid in the womb filled the room. The doctor's frown dissolved into a look of sadness._

_ "What is it? What's wrong?" Zoey tried to sit up and see what was going on, only to be pushed down by the doctor's hand on her shoulder. _

_ "I-I can't find a heartbeat," Dr. Miller stuttered. The wand moved some more, and Zoey felt a feeling of dread settle into her stomach. "The baby isn't moving, and there is no heartbeat. I'm so sorry." _ _The doctor went on to explain what would happen now, that the baby would have to be removed from the uterus to prevent problems, but Zoey wasn't hearing her. Her voice seemed very far away, and it echoed around her head. No heartbeat…sorry….her baby. Her baby had died. The baby that she had spent months preparing for was gone. She had just felt the baby kick a few hours ago; the steady thump, thump, thump against her hand had made her heart soar. She thought of the little shirts and socks tucked away in the dresser that would never be worn. The quilt her mother –in – law had made that would never be lovingly tucked around the baby as it slept. She would never hold it, rock it in the rocking chair and soothe it after a bad dream, never be able to do all of the things she had been dreaming of since the day she found out she was pregnant. Waves of sadness and anger washed over at the same time; hot, oily tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at her stomach. She felt robbed of motherhood, and angry that her child had been betrayed by one of the people who were supposed to love and protect it unconditionally. She heard strangled noises coming from the doctor, only to realize a moment later they were coming from her. And though it was completely unprofessional and out of the ordinary, Dr. Miller wrapped her in a tight hug and whispered apologies into the quiet air of the room. _

_ James came the next day as she was being discharged. He was his usual post-argument self; he was repentant and attentive, smoothing his hand over her hair as he mumbled apologies in her ear. He had brought a bouquet of flowers, and a teddy bear for the baby. Dr. Miller looked at him with contempt as she told James that his wife had miscarried, having pieced together how Zoey had ended up in the hospital. James paled, but said nothing. Zoey supposed he had shocked himself that he could go as far as to kill an unborn child. And she supposed he was embarrassed over bringing the teddy bear. They left the hospital with an appointment a few days later to make sure her body had done its job completely. _

_ At home, she saw that James had fixed the nursery back to its pre-fight condition, down to the stuffed animals being placed at the end of the crib. James went out to be with his friends half an hour after having walked through the door, and she was glad for it. She sat in the rocking chair with the teddy bear James had bought and sobbed. She rocked the teddy bear until the room grew dark, and then crawled into her bed and cried some more, finally falling asleep as exhaustion claimed her. _

_ The baby's funeral service was held the next week after her doctor's appointment. Zoey had been wrong in thinking she would never be able to hold her baby; the doctor had wrapped the little thing in a blanket and handed her the bundle. If she didn't know any better, the baby could just be sleeping. The baby was no bigger than her hand, and was swimming in the sea of blanket. The features were peaceful-looking, despite its violent death. Opening up the blanket, she found that the baby James had been so adamant was a boy was actually a little girl, and she had felt another wave of sadness wash over her. The service was held the next day, with just Zoey and James watching as the tiny casket was lowered into the ground. She had named the baby Ella Rose, and tucked the quilt the baby's grandmother had made for her around her tiny frame. James had brought the teddy bear from the previous week, and though Zoey couldn't bear for it to be put in because he had bought it as an apology for hurting her and killing their child, she allowed James to place it beside the baby. The casket was lowered into the ground, and the pair left. Zoey wasn't sure what James was feeling as they walked out of the gate and to their car, but she felt her heart breaking for the millionth time in as many hours. _

"James put a ban on talking about the baby after that," she said. "He likes to pretend she never existed. And he got a vasectomy so that something like this 'never happened again.'" Those had been his exact words. And that had been the end of it; there had been no more talk of children, and Zoey was relieved. She didn't want to bring a child into a home like that. It didn't escape her that it had been five years since the incident, and that if her daughter had lived, she would be entering kindergarten that fall. She would be talking up a storm, drawing pictures, laughing. Her heart ached at the thought.

She finally looked up from her knees to look at Chase, only to find that all the blood had drained from his face and he wore a horrified expression. Before she could tell him again that it was five years old and didn't matter anymore, he had thrown back the covers and tugged her from the chair into his arms in a tight hug. He seemed beyond words, sputtering out an obscenity here and there, and she was sure she heard her husband's name being dropped in-between, but he was silent otherwise. He rocked them both back and forth on the bed as Zoey completely broke down; the unfairness of it all had finally boiled through her numb outer shell and she felt like a paper towel dissolving in a pool of water.

"Why didn't you leave?" he asked finally, after her crying had subsided. His voice had a pleading note in it. "Why didn't you come find me?"

"Where was I supposed to go?" she asked, pressing a hand against his chest and feeling his heart beating; it was strong and steady, like him. "We moved away from anyone I knew, and I didn't have any friends."

"What about your parents? Or Dustin? I'm sure they would have helped you."

"I haven't seen my parents since before I was married. They sent me a letter to say that Dustin had been accepted to Stanford, and that was the last I heard from them. They didn't even know I was pregnant." she sighed. She had missed her mother the most right after the miscarriage. Though her mother-in-law had been incredibly supportive, some things a girl just needs her own mother for, and a miscarriage was one of them.

"Why didn't you call me, then? I gave you my e-mail address when we left high school, remember? It hasn't changed."

"There wasn't any internet access in my house. James was afraid I'd be trolling those cyber-sex chatrooms and cheat on him, or something like that. Plus, he thought I'd spend all day on the computer instead of being the quintessential housewife. I used to sneak to the library to use the internet there, until he caught me one day on his lunch break. I thought about e-mailing you, though."

"Why didn't you? I would have been there in a heartbeat," the tone of his voice told her he wasn't joking.

"I was…embarrassed, I guess. Ashamed that my marriage had boiled down to this. Not to mention you were married." The lack of a wedding band on his hand at the reunion hadn't escaped her as he had talked with her and James. "I was the ex-girlfriend. I didn't want to cause any rifts between you and your wife. Especially since the woman you married used to hate my guts." She remembered receiving that e-mail from Michael one afternoon, that Chase had married Rebecca in a small ceremony in Oregon. A shock, to say the least.

"I'm pretty sure she would've understood," Chase rested his head on top of hers and squeezed her a little tighter. "Right before she asked for a divorce, she caught me going through a box of our old stuff. I thought she would have been upset, but she said she knew when we got married that she wasn't my first choice. Apparently, I wasn't hers either, because she divorced me and then flew across the country to be with another man. It was okay, though. We realized we weren't in love with each other and that staying married only prolonged the torture."

"Still—"

"I hate that you went through that, Zo. You have no idea how much it kills me to know you've been suffering for ten years. I can't believe life has been so unfair to you."

"Live is unfair for everyone, Chase. Not just me. It's not a big deal," she traced patterns onto the smooth skin of his chest with her fingertips to avoid looking at the stony expression she was sure was there on his face.

"It _is_ a big deal. I was satisfied to see that you'd married James because I thought he'd love you like you deserved to be loved. I imagined a large house, a dog, kids husband who adored you. And instead I find he's been hurting you. Any man who has you and doesn't cherish you is a fool, Zoey," he murmured the last part and dropped a kiss to her forehead. "A damn fool."

"Thank you," she said, not feeling as though his words were entirely true, but grateful that he'd said them anyway.

"You don't believe me," he said. It was a statement, not a question. He lifted her chin with a finger and kissed her long and deep. When they broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers. "I mean it, Zo. My biggest regret was not stopping you when you said it was over. I was so stupid; I let my pride get in my way. And the fight was so pointless. Who cares if we went to college near each other or far away? We would have made it work, I know we would have." He kissed her again. "Instead, we both got stuck in marriages we hate, and now we're here." He flipped her around and pinned her to the mattress while he slowly unbuttoned the shirt she wore. In moments, it was tossed haphazardly over his shoulder and they were back to making up for lost time.

Hours later, Zoey awoke again to find dawn creeping in on the room and her body once again entwined with Chase's. This time, she was using him as a pillow and his arm had a death grip across the back of her shoulders. It was literally painful for her to tear herself away this time, as she slipped from the bed to find her clothes. After dressing in the clothes she had worn yesterday, she walked over to the desk the hotel provided and pulled out a piece of paper. With tears in her eyes, she took a pen and hastily scratched out her message:

_Chase, _

_I'm sorry. I can't stay. Last night and this morning were the best days of my life, but being with you would be unfair for you. Please, don't try and find me. I love you. _

_ Zoey_

Picking up her coat, she gave Chase one last kiss on his forehead and propped her letter, now folded into thirds, next to the lamp on his bedside table. She was sure he would find it when he woke up in a few hours, and she didn't want to think about what her leaving would do to him. She hoped he would find it in his heart to eventually forgive her and move on. She, on the other hand, would never forget this night and would keep it with her as a buffer against the backlash that was to come. With one last glance around the room that more home to her than her actual home, she stepped out into the California morning and walked away from the only man she would ever really love.

**A/N: So, do you hate me yet? I hope not, there's still more of this story to be written and read! I bet you all forgot about the conversation about the baby while the gang was in the gym earlier. Didn't you? :) **


	20. Reunion for Quinn and Logan

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: I can't believe **_**Lost and Found**_** is coming to an end. This is the second to last chapter, can you believe it? I might do an epilogue, but it's almost the end! I hope everyone's enjoyed this ride as much as I have. **

_Two months later_

"I can't do this anymore," the comment was so unexpected in the mundane silence of their home that even the gray-striped Albert paused in lapping at a paw on his window perch to look at her strangely. It would have been more conventional for her confession to come out after a blow-out fight, in which he'd confront her about the itching powder and she'd confront him about his affair. _That_ had ended with a tearful confession and apology on his part, and begging on his knees for a second chance. He'd looked so pitiful, she agreed. Plus, she had been feeling guilty over her aborted tryst with a certain ex-boyfriend and felt she, too, deserved a second chance. She had put the legwork into their marriage since, reading up on popular literature and looking into counseling. He'd been good for awhile, and seemed to be making good on his promise. And yet, here he was, again packing for another fictional business trip. He was acting, for all intents and purposes, like he was grudgingly spending a week at a conference in Ohio. And she would have believed him, too, if the airline hadn't called yesterday to say his flight to Aruba was being bumped up to first class.

"Well, I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I have to go to these conferences," Mark didn't even look up from comparing how his paisley tie looked with his gray pinstripe suit. Albert jumped from his perch to the bed, only to be roughly shoved to the floor by Mark; the cat glared and hissed as Mark made some comment about him being a filthy animal.

"No, not the conference," her voice was calm and even. "Us. I can't do us anymore." That got his attention. He paused in folding an undershirt and turned to stare at her as though she'd grown four heads.

"What do you mean, you 'can't do us anymore'?"

"I know you're going to meet her." There was no need to clarify who _her_ meant. It was his secretary. Again. She felt a pang of sadness that his betrayal didn't hurt her anymore. It was just a disappointment. But to his credit, Mark didn't even sputter out an excuse or try to weasel his way out of the situation.

"I'm sorry," the two words sounded empty and hollow as they echoed around the room. He wouldn't look at her and he fiddled with the zipper on his suitcase.

"I know."

"I'm not doing this to hurt you."

"I know that, too," she knew it, but couldn't make herself believe it. How could he think that turning to another woman wouldn't hurt her? To her, it was very simple. Apparently not to him.

"I'm sorry," he repeated. A moment of silence passed. Quinn wondered suddenly whether the moment of silence was in reverence to the dying breath of their marriage, but cast it aside as a question she'd wanted to ask crept up from her subconscious.

"Why didn't we ever have children?" she asked suddenly. Mark's head shot up, clearly not expecting this turn of events. In reality, it was a question that had plagued her since the reunion and her talk with Logan. His talk of seeing their children in those he saw on the street had tugged at her heartstrings. Though she may not show it, Quinn adored children and had always dreamed of having a large brood of her own. She'd been a lonely only child, and felt that a child needed siblings to complete their childhood. Somehow, this desire had gotten lost in translation when she'd gotten married. "We've been married for years. Most people would have children by now."

"We discussed it before we got married," he replied, still not looking at her. "We decided that children weren't worth the hassle. That's why we kept the cat." As if a cat was interchangeable with a child. Another gap of silence stretched between them. She played with a stray thread on their bedspread, her brow furrowed. _We didn't decide anything,_ she thought. _You decided._ Mark couldn't stand children. He had told her firmly that he didn't want kids and that there was no getting around that. Quinn had thought he was her best shot at a successful adult life and jumped at his proposal. How wrong she'd been.

"I want a divorce," the words jumped out of her mouth before she could stop them. She hadn't anticipated broaching the subject like this. Subtlety would have been good. And tact. But she couldn't take the words back, so she took a deep breath instead and awaited his reaction.

"I figured as much," he said, looking both relieved and defeated. Relieved, she imagined, that he could now go and be with his girlfriend without the added weight of a wife. Defeated because she knew he hated to lose. She'd learned that in high school when he'd refused to let her go and driven a wedge in between her and Logan.

"I'll speak to a lawyer first thing tomorrow," she said.

"I'll talk to mine when I get back."

"I don't think I'll be here when you get back."

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

And thus their marriage ended. Not legally. Not yet. But emotionally, physically. Severed simply and neatly as though it had been a tangled yo-yo string. To be truthful, their marriage had been dying for years now, long before Mark started sleeping with his secretary and long before Quinn realized she was unhappy with how her life had turned out. This was just putting the official stamp on it. Where she should have felt sadness, she felt light and happy. She was free. Free of her mundane and boring life as a high school science teacher and devoted wife. She felt years younger, with the vibrant hope she'd felt at her high school graduation. She was no longer Quinn Delfigalo. She was once again Quinn Pensky, science whiz and spunky girl. Her family would look down upon her for leaving her husband, but she felt liberated and relieved. By the time Mark had finished packing for his trip and left the house without so much as a goodbye, Quinn had formulated a plan and knew what she had to do. When she heard the front door slam shut and his car back out of the driveway, she ran to the closet and pulled out her own suitcase. Albert gave a confused mewl as she threw open her dresser drawers and piled clothes into the waiting bag on the bed. She ignored him, now feverishly rushing to the bathroom to scoop toiletries into a plastic storage bag. She placed a hasty call to the airline as she sat on her suitcase to get it closed. Within half an hour, her flight was confirmed, she had lured the cat into his travel box with tuna fish, and had shoved him and her luggage into a waiting taxi. No sense in taking her car to the airport; it would likely sit there indefinitely. Forty-five minutes after that, she was on a flight to the Bahamas, nervous butterflies fluttering in her stomach mixing with excitement. She could only hope this turned out as she'd planned.

Logan was beat. It was the last day of filming. Thank God. If he had to take one more day of the sniveling actors demanding this and demanding that, he might just snap. Especially Candy. He couldn't wait to get rid of her. Permanently. He didn't care how much money she brought to his pictures, he wasn't hiring her again. She'd attacked him the moment he'd walked onto the set after the reunion and hadn't stopped hounding him even though he'd all but physically thrown her from his trailer. Even now, as he came upon the rusty sardine can that passed as his living quarters, he saw a note in Candy's handwriting inviting him to do lewd things to her, sealed with a lipstick kiss. He crumpled the note in his hand and shoved it in his trash can after unlocking the door and stepping inside. All he wanted right now was a beer, and a nice long nap. The rest of the cast and crew had gone out for celebratory drinks and some praying to the gods of movie-making that they had made a summer blockbuster. He had begged off, citing exhaustion and need for sleep. However, looking around him, it didn't look like that was going to happen. He couldn't even _find_ his bed. Clothes and empty beer cans were piled everywhere. He could have insulated his trailer for a nor'easter with the pizza boxes littering his floor. Sighing, he waded through the debris and attempted to find his bed. He didn't feel up to cleaning right now.

Since the reunion, Logan's bad mood and depression had only worsened. He couldn't believe he'd sent her away, without so much as a by-your-leave. He was an idiot. A goddamn idiot. He thought he'd regret a night spent with Quinn; he'd never dreamed he regret _not_ spending it with her. Of course, it was a vicious see-saw cycle: if he'd led her into her hotel room and picked up where they left off, he'd feel like the scum of the earth. However, since he'd been the gentleman his parents had tried valiantly to raise him to be, he felt a pang of sadness that he'd never know "what if". What if he'd been able to convince her she deserved more than boring Mark? What if she'd agreed and run away with him? The chances of that had been slim to none, but it was the "slim" part that was driving him insane. Finally finding his bed, he swept off the clothes and junk off of it with an arm and flopped down on it backwards. He'd never realized how boring his ceiling was. And dirty. How did the ceiling of a trailer get water stains? He thought it best he didn't know.

A loud rapping suddenly came at the door. Logan's eyes shot open and he sat up groggily. He wasn't even aware that he'd fallen asleep. The room was dark now, the twilight throwing everything into shades of blue and purple. The knocking came again, more insistently. He heard a woman muttering, and he groaned. Candy. Wouldn't she ever just leave him alone? That woman needed a muzzle and a fifty yard restraining order. Both of which he would buy in the morning. And some pepper spray. Growing more irritated by the second, he yanked open the door, fully prepared to give Candy another earful of insults and warnings of lawyers and lawsuits. What he encountered, however, was very different.

"Quinn?" His first reaction: elation. His second reaction: confusion. His mind started making all sort of strange leaps of logic. He started with Quinn running back to him and ended with her dying of some horribly rare disease. He couldn't even begin to sputter a reply.

"Hi Logan," she said quietly, wringing her hands together. She looked very small and nervous on his doorstep.

"What are you doing here?" he managed to say at last, his mind kicking back to life of its own accord. He stepped back to let her in the trailer and wished he'd cleaned instead of slept. She sneaked past him and to his relief didn't comment on the fact that there was no floor to his living quarters. She side-stepped an empty pizza box and turned to face him.

"Mark and I…" she trailed off, her brow furrowing as though searching for the right words. "We're getting a divorce."

"A divorce?" Well, didn't that just throw him for a loop? He wasn't quite sure how to respond.

"Yes. I just couldn't do it anymore."

"Where is Mark now?"

"I have no idea. Holed up with his secretary in a hotel room, I bet." To his surprise, there was no bitterness in her tone. There was no joy in it, but at least she didn't sound remorseful about the divorce.

"So you came here?" She winced at the question, playing with the hem of her shirt.

"I-I know this is unexpected, and probably stupid, and—" her rambling was cut off as Logan wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her to him for a kiss. Impulsive? A bit. Did he care? No way. And apparently neither did she, if vice grip she had around his neck was any indication. Suddenly feeling the need to closer—much closer—he lifted her until she had her legs hooked around his waist, and pulled her inside. An awkward moment of fumbling to close the door, and he was wading across his trailer to drop her neatly onto his bed. She clawed desperately at his shirt, seemingly trying to just tear the thing off his body completely. She succeeded, much to his surprise, when she found that the ratty t-shirt he had dug up had a hole in it. A tearing of cloth was heard, and the front of his shirt was hanging in two pieces. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but that would mean he would have to stop kissing her, and that would be nothing short of a crime. When they paused momentarily for air, he took the opportunity to tug his ruined shirt over his head and toss it behind him. He removed hers while he was at it, and threw it from him like it had burned him. Her gaze raked over him appreciatively, making him feel exposed and tingly. She held out her arms, he was about to enter into her embrace again when he had an attack of conscience.

"Shouldn't we talk first?" he asked. His faculties were quickly leaving him, especially as she trailed a path of kisses down his neck and collarbone. "I mean, talk a bit more?"

"Talk later," she said, moving her way across his shoulder. As she nipped a particularly sensitive spot, Logan threw all caution to the wind. He flipped them so that she was pinned to the bed beneath him and gave a wolfish smile.

"Alright, we'll talk later," he agreed. And that was all that was said for quite some time.

Logan awoke sometime near dawn to find a warm weight on his chest. It took a moment to recall the events of the previous night, and he couldn't help but grin foolishly when it finally came back to him. Quinn was here. She was leaving Mark. Had left Mark for him. He was ecstatic. She slumbered peacefully, using him as a pillow. She had both arms wrapped tightly around his middle, as though she had a mind never to let him go. He wished she would. He knew he wasn't going to. He hadn't been the smartest tool in the shed growing up, but he knew when he'd been given a second chance. And he wasn't about to waste it. He pulled the blanket up a little higher around her shoulders and tucking it around her. As he did, she stirred and stretched, torn between wanting to wake up and wanting to sleep some more. She lost the battle, and looked up at him sleepily when she remembered her surroundings.

"Good morning," he said, kissing her softly. She gladly returned the kiss. Good. It meant she didn't regret their night together.

"Good morning," she replied, snuggling closer to him. She chuckled. "I guess we should have that talk now, huh?"

"Probably," he nodded. He didn't quite know where to begin. In the end, he decided he might as well enter the thick of it and asked, "Why are you and Mark getting a divorce?"

"I couldn't take it anymore," she confessed. Her voice took on a sad note. "After the reunion, Mark's affairs came out, and we agreed to counseling. He apologized and swore it would never happen again."

"But it did?"

"It did. Multiple times. I realized he was never going to change. He didn't want to change. I had given up my dreams for this man, and he couldn't even remain faithful for longer than two weeks. I'm nearing thirty. I work a job that I hate, was married to a man I don't love. I haven't achieved any of the things I wanted to in high school. I don't even have any children. I have a cat. A cat who is probably very upset with me for not coming back to the hotel last night."

"You brought the cat?"

"I couldn't leave him in that house with Mark. Mark would have kicked him out, or brought him to animal shelter. I couldn't let that happen. He's being babysat at the kennel at the hotel."

"Well, good," he said. He had a million other questions, but he sensed she wasn't quite done explaining things yet.

"I asked Mark before I left why we'd never had children. He told me that we had decided before we got married that children were too much of a hassle. Of course 'we' meant 'him', and that was just the last straw. I had to get out of there."

"And you came here?"

"I had to. I spent years pushing aside our relationship, Logan. Years denying how much happier I had been with you than with Mark. I spent forever convincing myself that I had made the right choice. And then the reunion happened. I caught a glimpse of what I'd lost, of what life could have been like if I'd chosen you over him. It started to eat away at me inside. And before I knew it, I was on a plane headed to the Bahamas, and then on your doorstep."

"I'm glad you ran here," he hugged her a little tighter. "Personally, I think Mark's an idiot." He had a sudden moment of de ja vu. "He let a beautiful, intelligent, amazing woman slip through his fingers. Of course, that makes me an idiot, too, since I did the same thing. But I'm hoping that beautiful, intelligent, amazing woman will give me a chance to correct my mistake."

"Yes, I will," she grinned. He grinned back, before drawing her into a lengthy kiss. He tried to pour all of his love for her into that one kiss.

"Thank you," he mumbled against her lips. He pulled back and rested his forehead against hers. "Filming has just wrapped up here, which means I get to head home in a few days. Please say you'll come with me."

"I'll come with you," she promised. He kissed her again while reaching for his bag next to bed. After a moment of fumbling, his hand grasped what it was looking for. He drew out a worn looking jewelry box and held it out to her on his palm.

"Will you marry me?" he asked. She gave a watery laugh.

"Is that—?"

"The ring I picked out in high school? Yes, it is. This goes everywhere with me. It felt like I had a part of you with me, even though you never saw the ring and didn't know I was going to propose. We can pick out another one later if you want," he took the ring out of the box and slid it onto her recently bare left ring finger. It fit perfectly.

"No, I love it," she assured him.

"You didn't answer the question, though," he teased her.

"Did you even have to ask?" she teased back.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," he told her, tumbling her beneath him and beginning to make up for lost time. He was going to marry her when they got back to the States. Then, he was going to buy a house that she loved, and they were going to begin to fill it with children. Then again, he thought, they could have started that already. Either way, he couldn't wait.

He used to think that happy endings were more suited for the endings of his movies than for real life. But he held the living proof in his arms that happy endings _do_ exist, and he had never been so happy to be wrong.


	21. Reuinion for Chase and Zoey

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: The last chapter!**

_Eight months later_

Beeping. There was beeping. A steady one, right by her head. Had she forgotten to turn the alarm clock off again? James was going to be upset that he was woken up at six on his day off. Wait, that wasn't the alarm clock. The beeping was soft, rather than the obnoxious foghorn of her clock. She turned her head and tried to open her eyes to see what it was. She winced at the lancing pain that shot through her temples. Okay, _ouch._ She wasn't going to attempt that again. Her mind was having trouble turning over. Where was she? She listened, hoping for a clue. The beeping was still there, and behind it was the bustle of people, the squeak of sneakers on linoleum, phones ringing. Mumbled conversations. That didn't sound like her house. Even with James' friends over, there was never this much activity.

"Zoey?" a familiar voice sounded equal parts relieved and worried. James? No, not James. She felt a hand slide into hers and squeeze lightly. "Zo?"

"Chase?" she turned slowly and cracked an eye open. Still painful, but better. Chase sat in a plastic chair beside her bed, looking haggard and exhausted. His shirt was wrinkled terribly and he looked like he hadn't shaved in days. He brought the hand he held up to his lips and placed a kiss on it, his eyes shining with unshed tears. "Where am I?"

"The hospital. Don't you remember?" he asked. She shook her head. She couldn't remember anything after the terrible fight she and James had had. He had accused her of cheating—for the sixth time this month—when he found that she still hadn't gotten rid of Chase's old high school sweatshirt. She had finally mustered up the courage to ask him for a divorce, stating that if he couldn't trust her she couldn't be with him anymore. It had sounded so good in her head. When the words were out in the stale air of their apartment, however, it was very different. He was so livid; it was the first time she was truly frightened of him. She had been scared of him before, but nothing had compared to the bone-chilling terror that had washed over her at the look of pure hatred in his eyes. Even the incident with the knife the year before paled in comparison. He told her again that death was the only way she was going to get away from him. She remembered hiding in the bathroom, hoping the lock on the door would hold long enough to call 911 on the phone she'd thought to grab. The last part was fuzzier. She remembered shouting, the cracking of wood as the door was kicked in, James waving something around and then blackness.

"You've been unconscious for a few days. James tried to kill you. For real this time," he explained. "He told the police on the scene as much. He was drunk up to his gills, but I'm sure that's not going to make his case any better. You were smart to dial 911 before he burst through your bathroom door. The operator heard and recorded everything. She sent EMT's immediately along with the police."

"I didn't even know I'd connected," she admitted, fiddling with the thin cotton blanket pooling around her waist with the hand that wasn't in his.

"You did," he assured her. "They rushed you to the ER and managed to fix the internal bleeding before it got too bad. Apparently, James' weapon of choice was a baseball bat. They also set a fracture in your leg and brought down the swelling from a number of other bruises."

"And you fit into this…how?"

"My phone number was in your shirt pocket," he explained. "Or should I say my shirt, since it was that flannel one I wore to the reunion." She flushed. She had stolen his shirt; it was soft and comfortable and smelled like him. She had shoved it in the back of her closet so James wouldn't find out and wore it around the house to do housework in. It always brought her back to their night spent together almost a year ago. It made her feel relaxed and safe, if for a little while. She hadn't worn in it in a long time, though. She had been too afraid of James coming home early and catching her wearing it. She had dug it out of her closet because all of her other shirts didn't fit; she had borrowed a pair of James' sweatpants, too. With a sudden panicked gasp of realization, she yanked her hand from his and covered her stomach with a sense of dread. _No, no, not again._ Zoey felt hot tears behind her eye lids. _It can't be happening again._ Her baby was gone. The skin of her stomach was soft and pillowy, a change from the taut beach ball it had been last time she had touched it. The baby was gone. _Oh, God, not again._ She looked frantically at Chase hoping for some explanation. His eyes widened as he caught her train of thought and she suddenly found herself crushed against the warm wall of his chest as he shook his head.

"No, it's okay," he assured her, rocking her soothingly. "The baby is fine. He's okay." _He's okay._ The words sent a wave of relief so profound over her that for a moment she felt dizzy. Her tears of sorrow turned instantly into tears of joy, and she clutched handfuls of Chase's shirt as she cried from the miracle of it. Her baby was okay. This wasn't her little girl all over again.

"They had to do an emergency C-section," he told her, answering her unasked question. "Your blood pressure was through the roof. He wasn't getting enough oxygen and was in distress. They took him out before anything could go wrong. But he's okay. For being a few weeks early, he's perfectly fine."

"Were you there?" she wanted someone to have been there to watch over him while she couldn't. She had a terrible image of her baby surrounded by bitter, unfeeling doctors with no one to turn to for comfort. It made her feel cold inside.

"I was there," he said. "He was tiny, but he gave a good cry while the doctor cleaned him off. He was four pounds, five ounces. Eighteen inches. I held him for a little while after they bundled him up. He was having trouble breathing at first, so they put him in the NICU, but they just transferred him to the regular nursery yesterday and I've been told he's doing excellently."

"Can I see him?"

"Of course you can. I made them promise to bring him up as soon as you were awake. But I'm going to get a nurse to check you out while I go to the nursery to tell them, okay?" the worry in his expression was the only reason she agreed to it. She wouldn't feel completely secure until she felt the warm weight of her son in her arms. She suddenly realized that she hadn't even thought of names. She'd been too busy trying to keep them both alive day by day to think about what she would call him after he was born. That, and she hadn't wanted to find out whether it was a boy or girl. James hadn't expressed any opinion one way or the other, unlike her first pregnancy. Chase gave her hand one last squeeze as he left the room and a smiling nurse entered. After a quick check of her blood pressure, her heart rate, and a prescription of an acetaminophen for her headache, the nurse left with passing congratulations on the baby. Not five seconds later, Chase walked in, followed by an orderly and a clear plastic bassinette. He gave her a wide grin as the bassinette was rolled up to her bedside and she caught her first glimpse of the sleeping baby within.

Chase was right; he was incredibly small. He could probably fit into the palm of Chase's hand if he tried. He absolutely swam in the little white diaper shirt he wore, though she was told it was made to fit preemies. The diaper itself was half his size, and the pacifier nearly overtook his face. Not that he seemed to mind. He had one hand curled up over his eye and the other sprawled out in front of him as he dozed contentedly. He had a shock of dark brown curls on top of his head, some of which escaped and blew in the small breeze coming in through a cracked window. She wondered what color his eyes were, whether they were the newborn sapphire-blue or a different, earthier color. She reached over and traced a finger down his cheek. She was rewarded with a soft baby sigh and a kick of the feet. She smiled at the kicking; he'd kicked her in the ribs night and day the past few weeks in the womb. The rhythmic tap-tap-tapping against her ribs had her envisioning him in school, his foot tapping against the leg of his desk as he daydreamed out the window. She was dying to hold him, but hesitant to wake him up. Luckily, she didn't have to worry about it as Chase carefully scooped him up from the little crib and cradled the baby against his chest. She didn't fail to notice that Chase looked completely at ease with doing so, and that her baby boy cuddled into his shirt trustingly, grabbing a handful of it in his tiny fist.

"Alright, little guy," he said softly. "This is your Mommy. And she can't wait to meet you." He placed the baby in her outstretch arms, and moved to tuck a knit blanket from the bottom of the bassinette around his exposed legs and feet. His hand lingered on the baby's head for a moment, only to withdraw to let Zoey get acquainted with her son. She couldn't believe how light he was. There were bags of flour at the grocery store that weighed more than this whole human being. It was mind-blowing. But he was perfect, from his tiny fingernails to his miniature eyelashes and the delicate curve of his ears. Unable to resist any longer, she dropped a tender kiss on his forehead. Tears sprang to her eyes and dropped on the baby's blanket. She looked up to find Chase staring at her with a tender look.

Okay, this was an interesting twist to his day. Chase would have never thought he would have ended up sitting next to Zoey in a hospital bed, and least of all sitting next Zoey in a hospital bed cuddling a baby. If he'd known this is where he'd end up, he would have at least had more for breakfast than a cup of coffee. Maybe some Wheaties. Or a lumberjack breakfast. He leaned back in his chair, watching mother and son bond after so many hours apart.

_Chase was sitting in traffic when he felt the distinct rumbling of his cell phone on vibrate. He'd forgotten he'd even brought the damn thing to work with him, he used it so infrequently. It was almost always on silent, mostly because his boss had an uncanny habit of springing staff meetings on his employees and a cell phone call during a staff meeting would just be rude. He dug the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open, deftly avoiding hitting the SUV in front of him. _

_ "Hello?" he cradled the phone between his cheek and his shoulder. _

_ "Is this Chase Matthews?" an unfamiliar voice asked from across the line. _

_ "It is."_

_ "Mr. Matthews, this is Saint Christopher's Hospital, and we're trying to get a hold of someone who knows a Zoey Garrett."_

_ "Yes, I know her." Terror seized him. Why was Zoey in the hospital? Was she sick? Or worse, was it something her husband had done? That was assuming she'd gone back to James after their night together. Chase was pretty sure she had. And while the note had been another crushing blow in his relationship with her, he'd long since gotten over it. He'd looked for her, of course, but her address was nowhere to be found, even among her family members and friends. Chase was told that Zoey hadn't spoken to her family in years, and everyone expressed great concern over that. The address and phone number the school had used to send the invitation was no longer rented to James and Zoey; they likely moved shortly after the reunion. After five months of searching, Chase had resigned himself to the fact that Zoey didn't want him in her life. It had been hard, but his life now resembled something close to normalcy. He'd sold the house he and Rebecca had shared, and took a page out of her book, moving to the east coast—New England—to be closer to his own family, and he now worked as a journalist for a paper there. _

_ "Oh, good. Your phone number was on a slip of paper in her pocket; we didn't know who else to get in touch with."_

_ "What's happened?"_

_ "Mrs. Garrett is in our intensive care unit; she arrived terribly beaten and unconscious. It seems her husband just snapped. He's been taken into custody until further notice. Is there any way you can get here to be with her? I noticed your area code is from outside California—"_

_ "I'll be there in ten minutes." Thank God he was in California covering a story. Not something he usually did, but it was an expose on the political race out here, which featured a candidate who was raised in the town his paper was based in. Of course, ten minutes was a rough estimate. Punching the address into the GPS dashboard, he was relieved to find that the hospital was about ten minutes away. He had been terrified he was in the wrong part of the state; California was huge, after all. He hung up the phone without saying so much as "goodbye" and tossed his cell phone into the passenger's seat next to him. Then, taking an abrupt right turn that earned him several obscene gestures and honking horns, he cut across to the nearest exit and raced towards the hospital. _

_ Chase hated hospitals. He'd spent far too much time in them as a child, being terribly accident-prone, and his mind associated the sterile, disinfectant-smelling environment with needles, X-rays, and pain. He rushed through the doors of the ER, brushing past an intern who ended up dropping his armful of clipboards. _

_ "Zoey Garrett, please," he panted to the receptionist, who looked momentarily startled by his entrance. "I received a call earlier, saying she was here—"_

_ "Chase Matthews?" a voice behind him asked. Chase turned to see a doctor in blue scrubs and running sneakers walking towards him, looking a whole lot calmer than Chase felt. _

_ "Yes, that's me."_

_ "Come with me. You'll need to scrub up if you're going to be in there with her."_

_ "Be in where?"_

_ "The delivery room. Her blood pressure is very high, sending the baby into fetal distress. We're performing an emergency cesarean immediately."_

_ "Woah." Chase stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, leaving the doctor to walk a few steps ahead before realizing he wasn't following. "Baby?"_

_ "Yes. I assumed you already knew," the doctor gave him a sympathetic look. "Mrs. Garrett is roughly 36 weeks pregnant. A little earlier than we'd like to see for a delivery, but the baby should be just fine."_

_ "Oh," was the only thing that came out when Chase's vocal chords started to work again. _

_ "Here," the doctor handed Chase a set of scrubs to match his own, and directed him to place where he could change and wash up. Chase did so, but hardly paid attention to what he was doing. Five minutes later, he was frog-marched into the delivery room, which resembled something more like a synchronized swim team than an operating room. But what did he know? There was a reason he never went to medical school. The doctor positioned him up near Zoey's head, to keep him out of the way. While the doctor and nurses did the prep work, Chase chanced a look at Zoey. _

_ He'd never seen her look more helpless in all the time that he'd known her, not even at the reunion when she'd looked so broken. While most of her body was covered with a sheet, her neck and face betrayed everything; purple and yellow bruises mottled the skin there. Her cheek was cut, and one eye was swollen shut. The other was closed as her body fought hard to stay under to heal. He reached out a hand to tuck away a lock of hair that had escaped the sterile cap. The doctor announced they were ready to begin, and Chase held his breath in anticipation. He'd always dreamed of being here, right here, with Zoey a dozen times in his life. Though he certainly hadn't imagined her being unconscious and in pain, and that the baby's father wasn't him. But none of that mattered now. _

_ An eternity passed, or what seemed like it. He'd found that hospitals have their own time zone, in which time can move slowly or speed up depending on the situation. As the doctors carefully extracted the infant and monitored the mother's vitals at the same time, perhaps five minutes passed. To Chase, it felt like forever. _

_ "And, it seems we have a little boy!" the doctor announced, obviously pleased it had gone thus far without any complications. The doctor cleared the baby's airways, letting out a triumphant yell when the distinct cry of an unhappy, but healthy, infant filled the room. He held up the baby for Chase to see briefly, before handing him off to a nurse waiting with a blanket. Chase groped for Zoey's hand, bringing it to his lips to brush her knuckles with a kiss. He leaned down and whispered the news in her ear, hoping she could hear him somehow. _

_ "Would you like to hold him?" the nurse tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to find a smiling woman holding the tiny bundle that was Zoey's son. He hesitated at first. After all, he wasn't this boy's father, or related in any way. Was it really appropriate for him to hold the baby so soon after the birth? Wasn't that the parent's job? But thinking about it, the baby's mother was unconscious and his father was a criminal likely sulking in a jail cell. Chase was the only friendly face this kid had left. With that in mind, he nodded and held out his arms. The nurse carefully placed the baby in his embrace, moving his arms so he was supporting the infant's head. To his great relief, the baby didn't cry. _

_ "Hi little guy," he whispered. His heart melted as the baby wrapped a hand around his finger and squeezed it tight. He was tiny, but tough. He'd heard the doctor call out the baby's height and weight, and even though Chase was no expert, he knew the baby was small in terms of normal newborn size. The hat they'd placed on his head was falling down over his eyes, and he seemed to be drowning in the swaddling. Suddenly, Chase felt a wave of protectiveness wash over him. He didn't know why, but he felt as though he'd do anything for the child in his arms. Chase rocked the baby from side to side as the team finished with the operation. Chase watched with mild interest and concern until he heard a coughing gasp from the baby. In alarm, Chase looked down to find Zoey's son gasping for breath. His newborn eyes, closed a moment ago against the harsh lights of the operating room, were suddenly open and trying desperately to focus, to find someone who could help him. Finding Chase, his eyes trained on his face, seeming to plead to him to help him. _

_ "Nurse? Someone?" Chase's alarm had turned into full-blown panic as he saw the boy's face lose its pinky color and take on an ashen complexion. Luckily, there was a nurse not five feet from him. The nurse turned and gasped herself, plucking the baby from his arms and taking him to be examined. When Chase looked next, the baby had a mask over his face. The mask was attached to a larger version of the bulb they'd used to clear his airways, and the nurse was trying to calm the baby enough to get the air into his lungs. _

_ "What's wrong with him?" Chase asked, feeling very useless at the moment. _

_ "He's just having a little trouble breathing. Very common with premature babies, but it's definitely not a good thing," the nurse explained. "We're going to move him to the NICU in a few minutes if you'd like to walk with him." Chase considered splitting himself in two. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zoey being wheeled out of the room, presumably into a place where she could be observed. He decided to go with the baby. Zoey would likely be unconscious for hours, with a combination of the pain medication they'd sedated her with and her injuries. The baby was not. _

_ "I'll walk with him," he nodded. The nurse flashed him another smile before wheeling the baby out of the room in a little bassinette and down the hall. The NICU, he saw, was filled with babies just like Zoey's; all of them in their individual isolette in various stages of gestation or illness. They wheeled the baby down to the end and parked him next to an infant under UV lights. The nurse explained that the little girl's liver was underdeveloped and was using the light to cure her jaundice. After getting the baby settled, Chase rested a hand on the baby's head for a moment before going to see the condition of his mother down the hall. _

_ As he'd suspected, Zoey was still unconscious when he managed to reach her room. Now that the rest of her body was more visible, he saw more of the damage that James had done. Her leg was in a cast, and her body was riddled with hand marks and long, parallel lines of bruises. She looked like she'd been through hell since the reunion, and his heart broke. He realized that she'd probably come very close to losing the baby, and he sent up a prayer of thanks that this pregnancy had not turned out like her last. He sent up another prayer immediately after the first, pleading with the powers that be to allow Zoey to wake up and see this baby, who was fighting so valiantly down the hall for the life she was giving him. _

_ A few hours later, Chase's lower half was completely numb and he was on the verge of nodding off in his seat. It was definitely time for a coffee. Or at least a soda. Something with caffeine and enough sugar to bring down a horse. Standing up and shaking off the tingly pins-and-needles feeling, Chase wandered down the hallway, digging in his pocket for spare change. He found a vending machine that promised hot, delicious coffee. After taking a swig of it, Chase learned the true meaning of false advertising and tossed the whole thing into the trash bin next to him. _

_ On his way back to Zoey's room, he passed the NICU. He hadn't forgotten about the tiny boy who resided there, and decided it was time for a visit. Just to check up on him. To see that the nurses were treating him well, and that his breathing was okay. At least, that's what he told himself. The idea that this baby was slowly stealing the part of his heart that didn't belong to his mother was a little too painful a topic to think about. After all, when Zoey woke up, he was sure she'd tell him the same things she had written in the letter and leave him with nothing, again. He didn't think it was a good idea to get too attached. _

_ But just as his mind was giving that warning, Chase found himself wandering towards the isolette in the corner of the room, now half covered by a quilt to block out the harsh overhead lights. Looking inside, he saw the baby fast asleep on his back, oxygen monitors in his hands and feet leading into machines that told all was normal. A blue poster board placard read "Baby Boy Garrett". The cap the nurse had slipped on in the delivery room had fallen off (or been pulled off, it looked like). Instead of the blonde hair he'd been expecting, there was a covering of dark brown curls on the baby's head. Weird. Zoey must have some recessive genes somewhere along the line. _

_ "Can I help you?" a nurse asked him in a pleasant tone. _

_ "I'm…uh…." Chase didn't quite know how to explain the situation. That he was a friend of the mother and not related in any way to the child in the incubator would probably get him thrown out on his ear faster than he could say the words. The nurse arched an eyebrow before looking between Chase and the baby and breaking out into a smile. _

_ " Don't worry, Daddy, I get it," she said, pulling up a chair from out of nowhere and setting it next to the little crib. She pulled out a bottle of hand sanitizer from the pocket of her scrubs and squeezed a bit in his hands. "He's doing well. We're thinking of moving him to the regular nursery soon. I'll be right over at the front desk if you need me." She left before Chase could sputter out that he wasn't the father or any coherent sentence at all. He sank down in the chair, rubbing the gel in between his hands and waiting for it to dry. _

_ It was, of course, a natural assumption, he supposed. After all, he was the only man involved in the situation that the hospital could see, and he had been in the delivery room. He shrugged it off. It was too complicated to explain the real situation, and he'd never have to see these people again once Zoey was discharged. He turned instead to the baby, who had woken at the words the nurse had said, and now looked at him with a curious look on his face. _

_ "Hi, buddy," Chase said, reaching a hand into the incubator and stroking the baby's palm. He was delightedly surprised when the baby curled his fingers around his own. "I'm sorry your mom isn't here instead of me. She's…." He trailed off, trying to find child-friendly words. "She's asleep down the hall. But when she wakes up, I bet she's going to want to see you first thing." Chase still couldn't get over how tiny this baby was. The diaper he was wearing would have surely fallen off if he hadn't been lying down, and the wires monitoring his vital signs seemed to overtake him. His entire body could fit in Chase's hands with only his feet left, he was pretty sure. Not that he was quick to test that theory. _

_ Around him were families coming to visit their own babies. To his left, the baby girl under the lights was being cooed over by a doting grandmother exclaiming what a good girl she was for not pulling off the patches covering her eyes. A few rows away, a toddler in pigtails wearing a surgical mask was held up to see her baby brother, who looked frailer than any baby Chase had ever seen. The toddler squealed in excitement, and frowned when she was hushed. _

_ Chase didn't realize how long he'd been in the NICU until the nurse announced that her shift was ending and that she would tell the next nurse he was here and not to disturb him. Looking around, he saw the families who had been here earlier were gone, save for the grandmother who sat knitting in a chair next to the incubator. She gave him a smile and waved at him with her spare knitting needle. He waved back timidly, feeling oddly out of place. _

_ "How early was yours?" she asked conversationally. _

_ "Uh…." Chase tried to think of what the doctor had told him earlier. To be truthful, he hadn't really been listening. 36 weeks, he thought. How early was that? How long was a normal pregnancy? He desperately thought back to health class in high school and college. The number 40 popped into his mind. Forty weeks sounded right. "Four weeks, I think."_

_ "Ah," she said knowingly. "My grandbaby was alright in that department. She just needs a little help to get everything working right." She looked at the baby. "He looks just like you."_

_ "Oh, but I'm not—" Chase began. _

_ "Yep. I can see it right in the shape of the nose and the chin," she cut him off. "Chrissy here looks just like her mother. I swear I've been thrown back twenty years! She's my third, and my daughter's second, you know. But each one is as unique as they come. People say that all babies look the same, but I don't think that's really true." Chase was sure she was going to launch into a speech about children and the meaning of life, but he was thankfully saved by a burly looking man—Chrissy's uncle, he found—tapped her on the shoulder and told her that he would take over watching the girl. The uncle was not the conversationalist his mother was, and for that Chase was grateful. He needed room to think. _

_ His mind wandered in the silence. Zoey, James, the baby, the reunion, the accident. Four weeks early…the math wasn't adding up for him. Zoey told her that James had a vasectomy after her miscarriage five years ago. And while Chase knew it wasn't foolproof, the odds of this happening were very small. His mind automatically did the math. Thirty-six weeks ago…nine months….would be May. Out of curiosity, Chase grabbed the patient chart hanging from the far side of the baby's isolette. _

_ His eyes scanned the page quickly. Most of the information was gibberish to him; blood results, urine results, measurements in abbreviations and language he couldn't understand. Chase glanced around him quickly to make sure he wasn't going to get yelled at. He wasn't a medical professional, but he was pretty sure reading someone else's chart was illegal. The nurse who had just come on shift sat at the front desk, flipping idly through a magazine. Chase turned back to the chart. Suddenly, his eyes found what they were looking for. Next to the positive pregnancy result, the date of the last menstrual period, and the baby's due date was "estimated conception date". In wiry block handwriting was "5/3/19". _

_ "Oh, my God," was the only thing that came out when Chase's mind regained its footing again. He was a father. Short of a DNA test, Chase was sure of it. He felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as he watched the baby—his son—drift off to sleep with Chase's finger in his grasp. Why hadn't Zoey told him? Probably for the same reason she had left him sleeping in that damn hotel room. She didn't want to burden him with what she considered to be her problems. _

_ When Chase was sure the baby was asleep, he wandered back to Zoey's room. He was lucky his feet knew the way; his mind was too preoccupied to think about where he was going. He dropped heavily into his abandoned seat and looked to see that Zoey was in the same condition he'd left her in. He picked up her lifeless hand in his own and brushed a kiss over the palm. _

_ "Come on, Zo," he murmured. "We've got to talk about this."_

_ The next two days were spent in pretty much the same way that day had gone, with Chase alternating between the NICU and Zoey's hospital room. While Zoey's condition changed minimally, the baby made strides every day. The second day, Chase was able to take him out of the incubator and hold him. Later that afternoon, the wires were removed to see how well he did monitoring his oxygen levels on his own, and was able to be dressed in a loose t-shirt. The nurse who he had run into earlier had developed a soft spot for him and the baby, and Chase was relieved to find that he was never asked to leave. She encouraged him to try to feed the baby, an interesting endeavor that ended with a small amount of milk in the baby's tummy and a lot of it on Chase's jeans. The third day, the baby got the all-clear to be moved to the newborn nursery. Chase was happy; it meant no more wires or machines. It also meant Chase couldn't sit for hours and visit the baby. _

_ Chase came to a decision as he watched the baby snooze on his chest one morning. He wasn't sure he could just let go if Zoey decided to leave. His heart couldn't take that pain again, especially now that there was an extra component in the equation. His house in Massachusetts was plenty large enough; it was a rambling farmhouse on a wooded lot. He'd always loved the look of old fashioned New England homes and had bought it with the intention of using it as a family home. He wanted to bring Zoey back to the house, and the baby too. He couldn't imagine his life without them anymore. His mind kept fast-forwarding his life to holidays and ball games and birthday parties. The hard part would be convincing Zoey. She'd been hurt badly—not just physically—by James, and he needed to show her that he would rather die than hurt her or their child. He'd gotten so close that night at the reunion, but it was going to be a long hard road for the both of them. He was willing to take it, if it meant she would stay. _

The next afternoon, Zoey woke up. A lightning bolt of relief coursed through his veins so strong that he counted himself lucky that he was sitting down. She looked disoriented and confused as the fog of unconscious cleared from her system, demanding to know what he was doing there. He was surprised she didn't remember the accident, though she was probably better for it. He watched the hand he wasn't holding fly to her stomach out of habit, and the fear fill her eyes when she didn't find the baby within. Her previous pregnancy came to the forefront of his mind, and his heart shattered into a million pieces for the hundredth time. Life had been so unfair to the woman he had adored since he was thirteen. He didn't even try to suppress the urge to draw her into his arms, squeezing her tight and murmuring reassurances in her ear. The baby was fine. He'd just seen the child twenty minutes before, screaming his displeasure at having to wait for his lunch. Chase had chuckled at that. He wondered who he got _that_ from.

When Zoey had been calmed, he left to bring the baby for his very first meeting with his mother. He couldn't help but smile at the nurse when he told her the good news. He didn't realize what a unique case theirs was or how much the nursing staff had been paying attention until the two nurses on call both gave him their congratulations and hurried to get the baby. They chattered to the baby as they moved him to a bassinette with wheels, exclaiming in that high-pitched voice adults used with young children that it was a big day for him. The baby paid no mind, save for glaring at the nurse for interrupting his nap and falling asleep again when he was settled.

Chase followed as they wheeled him into Zoey's hospital room, and could hardly contain his joy and pride when he handed her the baby. The look of awe on her face was the pinnacle of his day, and she cuddled her son close. There had never been a doubt in Chase's mind when they were younger that Zoey would be a wonderful mother; she had a way with children that was heart-warming to see. They had been paired up once for a biology lab that involved genetics and the like; Chase had jokingly asked her how many children she was planning on having. She had answered with "At least three", and left no room for teasing. The fact that she had been denied this desire was cruel, in his mind.

"What are you going to name him?" he asked. She looked up, broken out of her reverie.

"I hadn't really thought about it," she confessed, adjusting the blanket he'd tucked around the baby's feet.

"I thought that was one of the first things mothers thought about," he teased.

"Usually, yes," she muttered, not saying any more. She paused for a moment. "I've always liked the name Liam."

"Liam?"

"Yeah. Too weird?"

"No. I like it. We'll tell the nurse when she comes back in," they lapsed into silence again, both watching the baby. Chase reached out a hand to stroke the baby's soft curls.

"Chase," she said suddenly. "I need to tell you something—"

"I know," he said. "James isn't his father. I know that."

"How?"

"The dates didn't add up. Then I looked at his chart. The conception date was put down as May third. You weren't with James that night, as far as I know."

"No," she agreed. "So you know that he's—"

"Mine?" Chase smiled. "Yes, I deduced that."

"Good," she said. She looked away. "You don't have to do anything. I just wanted you to know he's yours. I don't want to force you into anything." Chase had thought she'd say that.

"I wanted to talk to you about that, actually," he said. He took one of her hands between both of his and pinned her with a serious look. "Zo, I've been miserable for the last eight months. When I woke up and found your note, I was devastated. I thought I had finally gotten you back for good, that we could try again and I could try not to mess it up. Knowing you had willingly gone back to the man who hurt you tore me up inside. I had these horrible nightmares about what he could be doing to you. I looked for you for months. Even your family didn't know where you were.

"Then I get the call a few days ago that you were in the hospital. I think I took out a few passersby to make it here. The doctor tells me that James tried to kill you, and that they have to deliver the baby because he was in distress. It was both the best and the worst days of my life. You were in a coma, and I didn't know if you were ever going to wake up. But I got to see them deliver our child, and it was the most humbling experience. They handed him to me and I just couldn't believe how tiny he was. His mother was unconscious and his father—or who I thought was his father, was in jail. I was all this little guy had, and I wanted to take him away from all this. He stopped breathing and I could tell he was terrified. I sat with him in the NICU and felt useless. And then when I found out _I_ was the father, that he was part me and part you, I came to a decision.

"I don't want to feel like the last eight months and few days ever again. I have a house in Boston. I want you and the baby to come live with me. I know—"

"Yes," the word came out of nowhere. Chase looked up at her, shocked. Zoey looked a little surprised herself.

"Really?" he asked. She nodded.

"I want to get as far away from this place as I can," she said. "I don't have any good memories of California left. I want to start fresh. I want us to be a family. Liam deserves that."

"You do, too," Chase added. "Don't ever think you deserve less than the best, Zo." Chase moved to climb on the bed behind her, careful not to disturb any of the wires or wake the baby. After a moment, he sat with his back against the raised mattress, Zoey sitting comfortably between his knees and Liam tucked under her chin, snoring softly. For the first time in years, he felt wholly and completely happy. There was no raw ache in his chest, no nagging feeling that something was missing. He couldn't stop smiling; he was sure he looked certifiably insane. His heart leapt with joy as she settle more comfortably against his chest, resting her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes. Encouraged, he started to tell her about their new home in New England. The sweeping property and woods where Liam could play and explore. The old farmhouse he'd spent weekends restoring (well, restoring with a friend who actually knew his way around a hammer and nails) until it was beautiful again. He spoke of all the things they'd do in the house; Christmases and birthdays, reunions and barbeques. In a few moments, she was asleep. He smiled. He carefully reached around her to scoop Liam into the crook of his arm and then into the bassinette beside the bed before pulling the thin hospital blanket around them both and following her into sleep.

Two days later, mother and child were both discharged from the hospital, with the strict warning to Zoey to take it easy. She protested at having to be wheeled out of the maternity ward, but conceded when Chase pointed out that she couldn't hobble around on crutches and hold the baby at the same time. The nurse who had taken Chase under her wing hugged them both goodbye, and fussed happily over Liam on their way out, and all the staff on the floor wished them well. And as the small family stepped out of the hospital waiting room into the sunshine, Zoey and Chase simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. The nightmare that had been the last few days, and the misery that had ensconced the last decade was over.

They drove to a nearby hotel. Their flight didn't leave until the next day, and it was nice to have some downtime to relax and regroup that didn't involve hospital regimens. They settled on the bed with Liam in between them, simply enjoying him and each other's company.

"Before we go, did you want to get anything from the house?" he asked after awhile. He half hoped the answer was 'no'. He wasn't quite sure he wanted to see the place where she was tortured and nearly killed. The place where his son could have died. The thought of it sent shivers of horror down his spine. "Anything for Liam you wanted?"

"Actually, I did want to grab something," she said, capturing Liam's flailing little hand and kissing it. "It will only take a minute."

"Take as long as you need," he reassured her. She nodded and intertwined her fingers with his.

They planned their trip for later that afternoon. The apartment had been blocked off with police tape, but a notice on the door proclaimed the investigation was over and they were free to go inside. Chase waited outside in the hallway with Liam sitting in his carseat at Zoey's insistence; she didn't want Liam anywhere inside the building, she had said. She marched bravely into the living room on her crutches and then disappeared around a corner. A sudden panic came over Chase. He reminded himself that James was behind bars and would stay there, if he had anything to say about it.

Just when the temptation to go in and look for her was too much, she came back out. Chase expected to see a duffel bag or a stuffed animal for Liam, but was puzzled when he saw something purple and soft-looking tucked under her arm. He took it from her as she reached the door, and he saw her smile coyly as he unfolded it. It was his sweatshirt. Well, hers now, but it had been his in high school. He'd lent it to her the one day it had snowed at P.C.A. and had never thought to ask for it back. He couldn't believe she had kept it all these years. It was certainly worn from washings, but the school initials were still visible in a contrasting aqua color. He looked up at her and smiled in return.

"You know, you don't really need this anymore," he said. "You've got the real thing now. I've got a closetful of sweatshirts you can steal anytime you want."

"I know," she said. "But this one is special. It kept me sane at some of the worst times with James. It reminded me that I wasn't just what he told me I was. I used to be a strong, independent girl who had friends, and love. And for awhile, it was all I had of you." She stood up on her tip-toes and gave him a sound kiss on his surprised lips.

"You still _are_ those things," he reminded her when they parted. "If I have to, I'll spend the rest of my life reminding you. I love you."

"I love you, too," she said, kissing him again. "Come on, Chase. Let's go home."

"Let's go home," he agreed, hefting Liam and his carseat over one arm and leading her away from the apartment. To their hotel, and then to their rambling farmhouse in the country. A place absent of fear, and full of laughter, life and love.


	22. Epilogue

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**A/N: The very last chapter of **_**Lost and Found**_**. Can you believe this story has been going on for over two years? First, co-written with Jess, and then flying solo. I hope you all have enjoyed the ride as much as I have. **

The first ten years had passed achingly slow. The next ten years passed in the blink of an eye. Here they all were, again, at another PCA school reunion. Twenty years out of high school, and so much had happened. Love lost, and found again. Weddings, children, and anniversaries filled with joy and laughter had replaced the melancholy and the loneliness. And while the time between graduation and the first reunion had been nothing short of torture, neither couple could claim that they hadn't come out wiser for the experience.

Chase and Zoey had been married the year after moving to New England. Her divorce had been sped through litigation, aided by the domestic violence and by the fact that Zoey didn't care where any of the stuff in the house ended up, so long as she didn't ever have to go there again. Funnily enough, it had been Zoey who had brought up the topic of marriage; Chase had been hesitant to ask her for fear she would feel rushed and trapped. She firmly replied that she felt nothing of the sort and couldn't wait to be married to him. The ceremony had taken place at their farmhouse during a particularly sunny summer day. It had gone smoothly until Liam had escaped his grandmothers' holds and toddled up to his parents at the altar, demanding to be picked up. The pastor had joked that children should not be brought to weddings, as they have a habit of stealing all the attention. But since the couple in question didn't mind, Liam attended his parents' wedding perched on his father's hip. And when the pastor told Chase he could kiss the bride, Liam beat him to it, planting a sloppy kiss on Zoey's cheek with the "muah!" sound effect for emphasis.

James was sentenced to twenty years to life for attempted murder. He was up for parole every five years, but thanks to Chase's efforts, it had always been denied.

Liam had brought such incredible joy to their lives it was almost beyond belief. He had the sunniest disposition of any child his parents had ever known; he'd never spent more than an hour being sad or upset in his life. The woods around the house, as Chase had predicted, provided the perfect outlet for his curious nature, and he could often be found up a tree or wading in the nearby creek. He loved to learn, something Chase was sure he inherited from his mother (who was sure he had inherited it from his father), and devoured books the way others devour food.

They had added to the family during Liam's toddlerhood; a little sister for him. At an early age, Maddie had commanded the attention of her parents and her brother, and was the family's princess. Her love of everything pink and fluffy had led to a large collection of princess paraphernalia. She was the writer of the family, and though all her stories involved damsels in distress and princes rescuing them in the most outrageous ways, her parents couldn't have been more proud. She was bossy and opinionted, but had a big heart. She was forever bringing home stray animals and begging to keep them. For awhile, this had led to the family having a menagerie of sorts, until it had simply been too much and the animals given to good homes. She adored and hated her brother in turns, and he had the same reaction to her.

And then there was the newest addition to the family. Or rather, _additions,_ since this expectation was for one more than usual. Zoey had never known twins ran in her family, and they had been delightfully surprised when a routine ultrasound revealed two heartbeats. They had just found out the week before that they were expecting twin boys, at which Maddie and Zoey had jointly groaned. Chase didn't care either way, he was just happy the babies were healthy, and that their mother was fine as well.

Chase rested his hand on his wife's burgeoning belly as they stood surveying the gym full of old classmates. One of the babies gave a spirited kick at the warmth of his hand, and the silly grin he'd been wearing for much of the past decade reappeared. Not to be outdone, the other baby gave a kick on his side, so forcefully it made Zoey wince a bit. Chase was quick to soothe the ache with his other hand.

"Sorry," he whispered in her ear. "I forgot that they get jealous."

"Those kicks are getting stronger every day," she murmured back. "Are we having babies or professional soccer players?"

"We could be having babies who will become professional soccer players?" he suggested. She swatted him playfully on the shoulder as he placed a gentle kiss on her temple.

"Just what our house needs," she said. "Soccer balls flying everywhere."

"Well, maybe they'll be baseball players."

"Or maybe we'll get them into a nice, non-contact sport. Like chess."

"Right," he laughed. He looked around at the unfamiliar faces, and at the banner, welcoming the class of 2009 to their twentieth high school reunion. "Has it really been twenty years? God, I feel old."

"Oh, honey, you're not old," Zoey patted his arm reassuringly.

"You do realize that babies born the year we graduated are now in college, right?"

"Age is just a number, dear."

"If you say so." Looking around, he finally spotted a familiar couple. "Hey, it's Quinn and Logan."

"Oh, good. Someone we know."

Logan and Quinn had just arrived at the reunion, and were just as grateful to see their old friends as their old friends were to see them. Logan and Quinn had married almost immediately upon returning to the States, Logan having paid quite a lot of have Quinn's marriage to Mark dissolved quickly. Though she disapproved of him paying away his problems, Quinn couldn't complain about it too much, since it meant she became his wife that much faster. Their wedding had been the talk of the celebrity news circuit, though the ceremony itself had been a private affair where reporters and photographers (besides private ones) alike had been banned. Like Chase and Zoey's wedding, it was a small affair, with mostly just their families in attendance. They had chosen to write their own vows, and had moved even the reverend to tears with their heartfelt declarations of devotion and love for each other. Someone had the clever idea of typing up their vows, and as a belated wedding gift, they had received them framed above a picture of them at the altar. It now hung above their fireplace in a house they bought after the wedding. They had both decided their homes held too many bad memories to be used as a place to raise their family.

Their family was small; the couple had only one child thus far, a girl. Quinn had learned that it hadn't only been birth control that had kept her and Mark from having children; she had a problem maintaining pregnancies past the first trimester. Two pregnancies had ended in miscarriages before their daughter was born. Emily was only two, but already, her parents' world revolved around her. Her personality was just forming, and changing every day. Quinn and Logan still had no inclination as to which one of them she took after, or if she would at all, and waited with baited breath to see. So far, she showed a love of watching documentaries with her mother and of sitting on her father's lap while he directed his movies. She was a regular on set, though Quinn and Logan were adamant that she remain behind the camera, rather than in front of it. She was also a recurring sight at her mother's workplace, which was a small research facility for molecular biology. Already Quinn loved it far more than her teaching job.

And unbeknownst to Logan, Quinn had discovered the previous day that she was pregnant again. It was only a home test; a visit to the doctor's office in the coming week would confirm her suspicions. Logan thought she had a touch of the flu, and had treated her with kid gloves. She knew that was only going to get worse when she shared her good news. At the moment, however, she was nursing a ginger ale and praying that the pretzels she just ate would stay down.

"How are you feeling?" Logan asked as they walked up to greet Zoey and Chase.

"Fine," she answered. "A little queasy, but the ginger ale is helping."

"Do you want to leave? We can go if you want."

"Logan, I'm fine," she smiled and squeezed his hand to reassure him. "I'm not going to throw up, and I'm not contagious." Not unless pregnancy was catching. And what a mess the world would be if that were true.

"Just say the word and we're gone."

"Gotcha."

As the old friends greeted one another, a sudden sense of rightness settle over them, as if this was the way things were always meant to be and they had all been fools for messing it up. Michael and Lisa soon joined them, and it was as if they had never left PCA. They reminisced for hours over old jokes, the bad food, their crazy schemes. They shared photos and stories of their respective families, and at the end of the night, left with promises to e-mail and phone and visit.

And whatever happened between then and their thirtieth reunion, one thing was certain: life couldn't get any better than it was at the moment. Or so they thought.

**A/N: And that, my dear readers, is the end of this story. I've been writing this so long, I almost can't believe it. Hopefully this means I can concentrate on some of my other stories. I hope the ending was everything you hoped it would be, and that you'll review. Thank you to all of those who have been here since the beginning and stuck it out until the end. And to those who jumped in in the middle and everyone in between. Your support has been much appreciated. **


End file.
